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Politics Is Poisoning NASA's Ability To Do Science

An anonymous reader writes: Phil Plait just published an article about how politics is interfering with NASA's ability to perform vital scientific experiments. As expected when we heard that Ted Cruz would be made head of the committee in charge of NASA's funding, the Texas senator is pushing hard for NASA to stop studying Earth itself. Plait writes, "Over the years, NASA has had to beg and scrape to get the relatively small amount of money it gets—less than half a percent of the national budget—and still manages to do great things with it. Cruz is worried NASA's focus needs to be more on space exploration. Fine. Then give them enough money to do everything in their charter: Explore space, send humans there, and study our planet. Whether you think climate change is real or not—and it is— telling NASA they should turn a blind eye to the environment of our own planet is insanity." He concludes, "[T]he politics of funding a government agency is tying NASA in knots and critically endangering its ability to explore."

416 comments

  1. Climate change is politics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    If I am to read this submission right — and I think I did — NASA was told to ignore a current political issue and to do their jobs while the dust settles on that.

    Meanwhile OP wants to tell us the glorious truth!

    1. Re: Climate change is politics by DigiShaman · · Score: 0, Troll

      It's FUD so the 1%-ers can pay penance in the form of carbon credits while in reality making the rest of us having to cut back on our resource usage. Here's a clue; the rich will only consume more off the backs of others!

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    2. Re: Climate change is politics by jma05 · · Score: 0

      > rest of us having to cut back on our resource usage

      Right. That's the point of it. Resource conservation... across all humans... you and I included. You have a problem because it is not socialism?!!

    3. Re: Climate change is politics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So what's your plan Skippy? Surprisingly, 'whine about everything' doesn't seem to produce workable results.

    4. Re: Climate change is politics by facetube · · Score: 1

      Here's another clue: the ocean is going to consume the most off the backs of others.

    5. Re: Climate change is politics by ganjadude · · Score: 1

      so what do you propose?? shut down the car washes, and put 10s of thousands on unemployment??

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    6. Re: Climate change is politics by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They can sell off their jet and get rid of the entourage of SUVs.

      The cut off for the top 1% is an income of $34k.

      Or did you mean the top 1% of just the rich people that live in the first world, because that conveniently excludes yourself from the definition?

    7. Re: Climate change is politics by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

      current flagrant uses such as watering for ornamental plants or car-wash businesses.

      An insignificant amount of water is used by car washes. 85% of water consumed in California is used for agriculture, where it is heavily subsidized, and the biggest use there is irrigation of pasture for cattle. If you want to conserve water, you don't ban car washes, you ban hamburgers.

    8. Re: Climate change is politics by pslytely+psycho · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Well, this is an American story about American politics, why should it not use an American point of view? After all, the 1% moniker is currently Amerislang for the rich, it has been used to describe truck drivers, the Hells Angels, and others in the past.

      If this were about European politics, I would expect a European viewpoint.

      If it were about World politics, then I could see this metric applied, maybe.

      --
      Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
    9. Re: Climate change is politics by pslytely+psycho · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "An insignificant amount of water is used by car washes."

      You're absolutely right. Even back in the 1970's when I worked for a carwash, we recycled something around 80% of our grey-water. And that was in Washington state with no water shortages (at that time....anyway). I would imagine it has improved significantly since that time.

      --
      Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
    10. Re: Climate change is politics by phantomfive · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The point of listing the statistic like that is to hopefully reveal that people who whine about 'inequality' are mainly just people who want more for themselves.

      If they truly cared about inequality and suffering in the world, they would care about suffering and inequality in the world.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    11. Re: Climate change is politics by pslytely+psycho · · Score: 1

      I agree, I see however, a very narrowly focused article, referencing an American political op-ed piece. And a reply utilizing a very American slang term, which seems reasonable to me.

      An opinion laid upon an opinion piece, by an opinionated old dude....but, that's just my opinion.

      If you're on my lawn, I hope you brought beer and fired up the bar-b-que!

      --
      Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
    12. Re: Climate change is politics by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 0

      Well, this is an American story about American politics, why should it not use an American point of view?

      The specific thread where the "1%" was raised, was about how "the rich" are causing climate change. Climate change affects the whole world. The carbon footprint of a typical American is much closer to the top 1% than it is to the people at the bottom.

      The problem isn't "them". It is "us".

    13. Re:Climate change is politics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Republicans keep kicking up the dust; it's not going to settle unless those little screaming children get their way or somebody puts them in their place.

    14. Re: Climate change is politics by pslytely+psycho · · Score: 2

      Yes, you are most certainly correct. I merely addressed the use of the current slang meaning of 1% to be a proper response to an American op-ed piece.

      As to the rich causing it, only to the extent of resisting efforts to clean sources of pollution would I lay a heavier burden on 'the rich,' due to their outsized effect on politics and ownership of the sources of (industrial, not individual) pollution.

      It took force to remove lead from gasoline, but if you lived near Los Angeles in the 1960's, you know it helped a lot! It was never Beijing, but it was close. And it was opposed heavily at the time.
      It took force to clean up industrial smokestacks, which at the time were seen as symbols of prosperity and success, while polluting the landscape.
      On an individual basis, we now likely pollute more than our industries, and like our industries, it will take force to change.

      And I am as bad as anyone. I extensively recycle, reuse and re-purpose, while viewing cars more as 'toys' than transportation. Therefore, I am a hypocrite, who will hold on to his 'Vette 'till they pry my cold, dead fingers from the wheel and shifter....

      --
      Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
    15. Re: Climate change is politics by jma05 · · Score: 1

      First, it is a question of what the right thing to do is for the planet. It's not a question of doing the opposite of what the rich say. Second, all the rich are not for carbon taxes. Like everyone else, some are for it, some are against it.

      Fine, bow to no man, I'm with that (and I get the carbon comedy of the recent climate conference). But do you bow to rationality?... given that the current scientific consensus is that we ought to be burning less carbon? Also, the rich will be the last to be effected by global warming. The poorest of the poor will be first effected, you and I will be next, the uber rich will be the last effected.

    16. Re: Climate change is politics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You will bow before the Ruling Elite. You have no choice. Your posturing is laughable.

    17. Re: Climate change is politics by jma05 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Indeed. Going by cumulative CO2 emissions since industrialization, US + EU contributed the bulk of the load (US + EU - 51%, China - 9%, India – 3%). So, by the logic of DigiShaman logic, and I fully agree with it when taken in a nation-state sense, the bulk of the burden must be borne by wealthy elite: Citizens of US and EU.

    18. Re: Climate change is politics by cyber-vandal · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Only if you pretend that the cost of living is the same everywhere.

    19. Re:Climate change is politics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You did not read the submission right. NASA was told to not look at or collect data because the Republican party has a very strained relationship with facts and reality. If the Republicans thought that climate change wasn't a real problem, they'd be eager for NASA to collect data so they could be proven right.

    20. Re:Climate change is politics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait. Is this going to interfere with NASA's primary mission of making Muslims feel better about themselves as the President and the NASA director have said?

    21. Re: Climate change is politics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      That's socialists for you. Anybody richer than them is too rich and should be pulled back down.

    22. Re: Climate change is politics by Imrik · · Score: 1

      The "top 1%" is referring to people who are millionaires. In the US this is roughly 1% of the population.

    23. Re: Climate change is politics by itzly · · Score: 1

      Oh, I was thinking it referred to the top 1% wealthiest.

    24. Re: Climate change is politics by BravoZuluM · · Score: 2

      A bunch of people marked this down as Troll. Not certain how this post qualifies, other than it goes against the grain of Slashdot's predominant stance that global warming is real. The main idea of the post is true. Carbon credits is a construct created for taking money from the middle class. Rich people spend a much smaller portion of their income on energy so the carbon taxes have minimal impact. They will just absorb the higher costs of energy and go on with their lives. Middle class workers will bear the brunt of the taxes. In California, gas is $1 more then in other states and moving higher. All it does is reduce the discretionary income of that single mom working two jobs to feed her children.

      Whether climate change is real or not, the politicians are using both sides to strike fear and uncertainty into the masses. Instead of coming up with solutions to the problem,, they are finding ways to increase tax revenue. The carbon will continue to pour into our atmosphere and all that will have been accomplished is that Al Gore will now have more jets to pollute our world. The seas are still going to rise, the weather extremes will get worse and people are going to die off.

    25. Re: Climate change is politics by hendrips · · Score: 1

      There are many more millionaires in the U.S. than that. Excluding home equity, approximately 6.5% of households are millionaires, as of last June. If you include home equity in the net worth calculation, somewhere between 10% and 15% of the U.S. qualifies, although it's frustratingly difficult to find exact numbers.

    26. Re: Climate change is politics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The cost is the same everywhere., I can live like a rural Kenyan in the US on $700 a year if I wanted to or live like a westerner in Kenya, but not on $700 a year. http://www.yaya-apartments.com/

    27. Re: Climate change is politics by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      This is completely ignoring things such as purchasing power parity. $1 in India is not the same as $1 in US.

      Then again, it's Daily Mail. You might as well reference Conservapedia while you're at it.

    28. Re: Climate change is politics by boristdog · · Score: 1

      True, I was recently dismayed when I added up my assets, subtracted my debts and found out I was a millionaire. I still have to get up and go to work in the morning.

        This doesn't match my childhood dreams of being a millionaire!

    29. Re: Climate change is politics by Immerman · · Score: 2

      I don't care if they're richer than me, but if they've used their wealth to tilt the playing field in their favor? THEN I have a problem.

      Would you play poker with someone who changed the rules so they got to make two sets of discards on every turn? Why then should we be expected to meekly play "economy" with capitalists who have stacked the rules in their favor? For just one example - why are capital gains taxed at a much lower rate than wages? The "upper crust" makes the vast majority of their income on capital gains, not wages, and yet the maximum capital gains tax rate is only 15%, less than someone making only $37k/year!

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    30. Re: Climate change is politics by itzly · · Score: 1

      This is completely ignoring things such as purchasing power parity. $1 in India is not the same as $1 in US.

      Given a median US income in US dollars. Would you rather live in India or in the US ?

    31. Re: Climate change is politics by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      In India. The overall quality of life for that $$$ would be much better.

    32. Re:Climate change is politics by whitroth · · Score: 1

      No, you didn't read it correctly. Did you read the *article*?

      Fine, I really do want NASA to look outwards... but I also want it to look down.
      Excerpt:
      Throughout the session, Cruz downplayed Earth science, claiming that NASA has lost focus on exploring space. It’s clear everything he was saying came from his stance of global warming denial.

      And that is utter nonsense, to be incredibly polite. Pure and simple.

      Bolden shot back, saying, “We can't go anywhere if the Kennedy Space Center goes underwater and we don't know it—and that's understanding our environment.” In other words, we must study the Earth and its changing climate. Studying our planet is at least as important as studying others.
      --- end excerpt ---

      In other words, Cruz, who has openly denied global warming (or "climate change", if warming gets your knickers in a twist), doesn't want NASA to even try to look for data.

      The real answer, as the article notes, is GIVE NASA MORE MONEY. They've been cut over and over again, just like everything except the vastly bloated US military.

                        mark

    33. Re: Climate change is politics by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      while in reality making the rest of us having to cut back on our resource usage.

      It's actually exactly the opposite. Given the virtually unlimited (and gratis) sunlight reserves, sooner or later, our resource usage will be able to scale our resource usage way beyond anything we've ever had. It's just a matter of time.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    34. Re: Climate change is politics by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      s/scale our resource usage/scale/

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    35. Re: Climate change is politics by Sri+Ramkrishna · · Score: 1

      The car wash is actually more efficient since it recycles the water. That's way better than private citizens washing their cars.

    36. Re: Climate change is politics by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The middle class aren't the hardest hit, it's the lower classes. I can afford an economical car, and if I need to pay $20/month more on gas I won't actually notice.

      Since carbon taxes are regressive, we really do need to have something to balance it, such as having a bottom income limit for FICA contributions or something else. Imposing carbon taxes and doing nothing else is a bad idea.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    37. Re: Climate change is politics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh bless your heart, you poor little thing...

    38. Re: Climate change is politics by NicBenjamin · · Score: 1

      Strictly speaking if you asked anyone in the Occupy Wall Street movement whether US taxes should go up to pay for hospitals and primary education in Mogadishu almost all of them would say yes. Add in the "why do we need to raise taxes? we can just cut defense spending and use that money" and you've got damn near everybody. The rest of the economic left would agree. And it's not like Paul Ryan is bitching about the evils of the 1%.

      The reasons that aid isn't a lot larger is there's a) numerous veto-points in the US System for people like Paul Ryan who disagree with the "1%" argument and b) it's remarkably hard to get get everyone else to actually cut checks. They almost all show up for the big donor's conference, and say they'll donate a huge dollar amount, but very follow through is generally lacking.

      Basically as a practical matter the policy you say liberals should implement can't happen until there's a One World Government which can just do shit without paying attention to the goddamn subcommittee chairman from Canada. And unless I'm mistaken* you would oppose that quite strongly.

      *This assumption is based entirely on the strong correlation between criticizing the left for it's concern about economic inequality and opposing things like One World Government. In real life, unlike Sherlock Holmes, the guy who guesses based on correlation isn't always right.

    39. Re: Climate change is politics by NicBenjamin · · Score: 1

      I get by on no home and $25k.

      So if you didn't mind a) giving up your nice car for a slightly older one with better mileage, b) selling your house and moving to an apartment, c) declaring staycations to be the bomb, d) deciding that your kids would just have to live with a normal public school education and student loans, etc. you'd be fine.

      But generally if you're the kind of person who actually buys a home, a couple cars, in a nice suburb with good schools, etc. you are not willing to do that kind of thing.

    40. Re: Climate change is politics by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      I don't know, Paul Ryan has been working hard to figure out ways to help poor people. I'm not sure you actually know what you're talking about.

      It's cool that you think we should help people in Mogadishu, though.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    41. Re: Climate change is politics by NicBenjamin · · Score: 1

      It's impossible with home equity, because most people don't actually know what their homes are worth.

      Just do a survey of people at a dinner party about their guess as their home;s worth. Then use the Zillow zestimate tool. nLast time I tried this everyone was off by at least 25%, and despite the fact Zestimates are known to be high most of them were too high.

    42. Re: Climate change is politics by NicBenjamin · · Score: 0

      Depends on what you use the tax for.

      I live in a very low-income Cleveland suburb (per capita income is roughly $20k). If you used the Carbon tax to pay for a much expanded Rapid (the local light rail service), or made the buses come every 15 minutes instead of every 40 or hour, most of my coworkers would probably stop driving their cars so much. They'd still need them for grocery-shopping, days when the kid would not go to fucking sleep so mommy really needs to sleep in, etc. but even if the tax doubles gas prices they'd probably save money if they just used the bus/Rapid three times a week.

      BTW, this kind of thinking is one reason conservatives rarely get anywhere in the black community. If you think of a reason that a left-wing policy would hurt the poor (and blacks a) tend to be poor, and b) the ones who aren't tend to be very sympathetic to the poor), but the Congressional Black Caucus strongly supports it; your first reaction should not be "why are those morons voting against their own interest?" It should be "Why would those rational human beings disagree with me abhttp://politics.slashdot.org/story/15/03/17/0025235/politics-is-poisoning-nasas-ability-to-do-science?sbsrc=md#out their own interests?" In this case the reason is a combination of coalition-building the CBC, and the blacks who overwhelmingly support it, thinks a government dominated by white pro-Carbon Tax liberals would be better for it then the alternative), and a very different definition of their own interests (ie: many of them would actually prefer to drive less and bus more).

      It's similar to what happens when Liberals ask "What's the matter with Kansas?" The answer turns out to be a combination of a) different priorities (many Kansans prefer a universe where they make slightly less money and abortion is harder to get), and b) different perceptions of their interests (Kansans tend to think of themselves as people who will be ricvh real soon now; or at least as people who only have a middle-class lifestyle because some rich guy can afford to hire them; which means that if you start talking about taxing the rich they get uncomfortable).

    43. Re: Climate change is politics by NicBenjamin · · Score: 1

      The 1% argument isn't just about helping poor people. It's about helping the everyone including the upper bits of the Middle Class (ie: all of the 99% who aren't in the 1%). It's also about reining in the people who are are in that 1%. Among most of it's adherents the idea is that you tax guys like Mitt Romney, and use the money to pay for nice things for everyone. Thus you get proposals like a financial transaction tax, ending the 529 deduction, etc.

      Paul Ryan is thinking about the helping poor people side of the equation. But he doesn't seem to think the Middle Class seems serious economic help, and if he proposes any new spending it will almost certainly be paid for by cutting some other spending, not increasing the tax burden of the 1%. Whatever he ends up proposing will almost certainly be mostly tax cuts targeted at helping poor people, plus some rethinking of how current government money is spent.

    44. Re: Climate change is politics by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      So basically what you're saying is you want to hurt rich people and help yourself?

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    45. Re: Climate change is politics by NicBenjamin · · Score: 1

      Who said anything about what I think? There's a difference between understanding the intellectual underpinnings of a movement and agreeing with it.

      Regardless, very few social movements in the US are totally divorced from self-interest. Black abolitionists, for example, were quite self interested. Even white abolitionists tended to frame their arguments in terms of their own self-interest -- "we can't compete with slave wages," "the slave power will take our freedoms," etc.

      As far as I can tell the only Americans who currently support a system that will not result in nice things for other people being cut while nice things for them get a healthy boost are very wealthy limousine liberals and relatively poor working class white conservatives. And both of those groups actually believe that in the long term they'll be better off if their nice things get cut.

    46. Re: Climate change is politics by Burz · · Score: 1

      I think the only "point" in this sub-thread is that the 'temporarily embarrassed billionaires' are shilling for oligarchs by shifting the focus of a discussion about national politics to the globe.

    47. Re: Climate change is politics by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Sounds like you don't think very clearly.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    48. Re: Climate change is politics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Neckbeards clinging to sysvinit and climate denial... Gotta love this!

  2. stop electing anti science politicians by llamahunter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you care about our future, and especially if you live in a red state where these charlatans seem to originate, please stop voting for anti intellectual and anti science politicians. They are only doing what they perceive the electorate has sent them to Washington to do, which seems to be to put their heads in the sand and 'pray' for a 'savior'.

    1. Re:stop electing anti science politicians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Fuck you.

      I suppose someone needs to remind jackasses like you that it is not just the Republicans who are fucking things up for NASA.

      Here's the chief of NASA, in an interview, saying what Obama told him to do:

      "When I became the NASA administrator — or before I became the NASA administrator — he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering,"

      The "foremost" goal of NASA, according to Obama, is not science, it's literally making Muslims "feel good". Not "a" goal... not "one of the goals"....THE FOREMOST FUCKING GOAL!

      http://politics.slashdot.org/s...

      So please do shut the fuck up about it being "red states" or "anti-intillectuals" fucking things up. There's plenty of blame to go around without just being a partisan dick about it.

    2. Re:stop electing anti science politicians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I mean, if a Republican had said the "foremost" goal of NASA was to make Christians "feel good" y'all would have gone ballistic. But because Obama says it about Muslims, only the sound of crickets was to be heard.

      I repeat. Fuck you.

    3. Re:stop electing anti science politicians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      Right ... How about producing a model that actually works and not being wrong with every Armageddon-like prediction ever made before you call the opposition "anti-science". Especially those of us that actually know and cherish the scientific method that excludes the possibility of a "consensus" ending a scientific debate. Science isn't a popularity contest.

      You can't claim that you accounted for everything meaning whats left is man made and then try to explain the lack of warming over the last 18 years as being from underestimations in your model. That completely invalidates it as a model and makes the original claim null and void.

      Nor can you ignore the corporate interests involved in pushing for climate change. The same people that are out there pushing it the hardest and those that are also the heaviest invested in what would become the only "acceptable" forms of energy.

      The entire debate is corrupted and I don't see how it can recover.

    4. Re: stop electing anti science politicians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yawn, you need to get a chill pill. The PR duties of the head of NASA are a long way from setting out actual agency policy.

      It was an interview on Aj-jazera, and he was pandering to them with a softball spin. Complain about political schmoozing if you want, but don't take it seriously.

      Ted Cruz, on the other hand, is serious in his thinking. His intentions, while themselves also placating his base, are also pretty clear.

      He'd gladly fuck over all of us in his own zealousness.

    5. Re: stop electing anti science politicians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I don't get freaked out over a pointless news interview for some reason. It's almost like I can recognize a bit of meaningless PR spiel with little trouble so it doesn't bother me.

      Let me know when you have something substantial happening at NASA that reflects a serious problem is occurring based on that.

      Like trying to make the pyramids fly, or maybe hunting down a magic lamp.

      No? Never happened?

      Huh.

      Now if you want to find some real problems with regards to NASA, you can, but it'll be unrelated to the NASA administrator flubbing his lines.

    6. Re: stop electing anti science politicians by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 1

      so the HEAD of NASA says that the single most important thing he has been tasked to do is muslim outreach... and all you can say is yawn and make up excuses???

      As the grandparent said, this was just pandering to the specific audience. No, it is not the most important thing for NASA to do any more than companies who claim that "safety is their priority" really care about anything other than their profits. Or bands on tour say that <INSERT_YOUR_STATE> is their most favorite place to be. Or insurance companies who advertise that "we care about you". Or politicians who say... pretty much anything!

      The only reason that you are fixated on this is that it gives you something about them Demeeecrats for you to get angry about. Do you have any specific problems with the actions of NASA? Can you even cite even one way that it has actually become a "muslim outreach"?

    7. Re: stop electing anti science politicians by khallow · · Score: 1

      so the HEAD of NASA says that the single most important thing he has been tasked to do is muslim outreach... and all you can say is yawn and make up excuses???

      Actually that sounds like a really good response. After all, is Bolden, the head of NASA actually acting like muslim outreach is that important? No. Then why not just yawn and move on to something serious?

    8. Re: stop electing anti science politicians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Poe's Law in action folks

    9. Re:stop electing anti science politicians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      much better to pray to your green God, eh? It's a religion, dude...stop trying to corrupt NASA with your religion.

    10. Re: stop electing anti science politicians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      so the HEAD of NASA says that the single most important thing he has been tasked to do is muslim outreach... and all you can say is yawn and make up excuses???

      Actually that sounds like a really good response. After all, is Bolden, the head of NASA actually acting like muslim outreach is that important? No. Then why not just yawn and move on to something serious?

      The point here is no scientific organization should have to even remotely pander to such nonsense that has fuck-all to do with space exploration. Even yawning costs taxpayer money. Move on? How about ignore altogether, and remove those who think otherwise. Otherwise, hints of even suggested priorities open up lawsuits against NASA for not focusing on "muslim outreach" as if that was ever in their fucking charter.

    11. Re:stop electing anti science politicians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Hey, Climate Change zealot. The predictions of the zealots have been uniformly wrong. Their models are wrong. They don't match observations. That is the definition of science.

    12. Re: stop electing anti science politicians by khallow · · Score: 1

      The point here is no scientific organization should have to even remotely pander to such nonsense that has fuck-all to do with space exploration.

      Welcome to the real world. There's no point to lecturing me on what scientific organizations should and shouldn't do. Pandering to such nonsense is a common burden on scientific organizations all over the world.

      Even yawning costs taxpayer money.

      NASA blows a lot more than yawning money on what it does inefficiently and ineffectively. For example, the SLS is in itself a complete waste. That's more than yawning money right there.

      How about ignore altogether, and remove those who think otherwise.

      Ok, who should be removed? I don't see anyone who actually believes Muslim outreach is that important. And this opens us up to a slippery slope where we fire everyone whose beliefs aren't entirely in line with the missions of the various organizations that they happen to be a part of. Just in NASA, we have a bunch of people in the unmanned space program who would have beliefs in conflict with NASA's manned space activities (namely that they think manned space flight is no better than near useless and shouldn't be a priority of NASA).

      Otherwise, hints of even suggested priorities open up lawsuits against NASA for not focusing on "muslim outreach" as if that was ever in their fucking charter.

      I see several problems with that assertion. First, hints aren't legally binding. Second, there's already a NASA charter, but it's not legally binding either. What's actually legally binding are the year to year spending allocations passed by Congress, with some modest contribution from annual authorizations.

      Congress didn't authorize and fund Muslim outreach as a core NASA goal. And even if they did, they could completely reverse themselves the next year without consequence.

      Third, nobody has standing to sue NASA because it isn't following its charter. And even if they did, they still have to get around NASA's sovereign immunity. Congress has granted a variety of exceptions to the federal government's sovereign immunity, but you can bet good money that they didn't grant any exemptions for reinterpreting the will of Congress in court.

    13. Re: stop electing anti science politicians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The point here is no scientific organization should have to even remotely pander to such nonsense that has fuck-all to do with space exploration.

      Sorry, but NASA has been spending gobs of effort on their PR since the beginning. You think they picked the Mercury 7 without considering their public appeal? You think that Teacher in Space was anything but pandering? Those irradiated tomatoes? John Glenn going back into orbit? All the stuff your science teacher could order from their catalog?

      And don't think it's limited to NASA. The Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force, the Post Office, the Park Service, they all do the same shit.

      Public appeal, somehow it's important in this world. Don't like it? Fucking change the world man, change the world.

    14. Re:stop electing anti science politicians by UncleGizmo · · Score: 1

      Methinks you miss the point. Yes, the debate is corrupted, but you lay blame at the feet of science for not "producing a model that actually works"?

      Say it with me: "all models are wrong; some are useful." The implication of this is that there must be much trial and error, to get better and better models to explain the causes.

      The (correctly-termed) "anti-science" proponents do not look to fund or study countering hypotheses, they find ways to poke little holes in the current model then use that to support broad brush policy decisions - not better models.

      Your example - 18 years of cooler weather - does not "completely invalidate" the model. It brings up an issue warranting further study. Perhaps Sen. Cruz will be willing to agree to funding it, since he is, based on your implication, not "anti-science."

      --
      Who put this thing together? Me, that's who.
    15. Re: stop electing anti science politicians by ultranova · · Score: 1

      really??? so the HEAD of NASA says that the single most important thing he has been tasked to do is muslim outreach... and all you can say is yawn and make up excuses???

      Do you want NASA to be accountable? Then it needs to do PR to win the approval of the people it's accountable to. Do you want to remove that need? Then it'll take your money and ignore your wishes.

      Outreach programs are the price you pay for living in a democracy, rather than a dictatorship. And they are the most important thing the leader does - he doesn't design rockets, he doesn't fly rockets, he ensures that the people who do get what they need, and also that the public gets what its money's worth.

      Basically, the head of NASA is a manager, and like a good manager, they seek to ensure their team gets the resources it needs - even if that means advertizing the teams existence and importance at every opportunity.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    16. Re: stop electing anti science politicians by hondo77 · · Score: 1

      ...the HEAD of NASA says that the single most important thing he has been tasked to do is muslim outreach...

      Never happened. Go away.

      --
      I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
    17. Re:stop electing anti science politicians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Democrats are far more anti-science than Republicans. Just look at the people that actually fund NASA. No matter how much you buy into the global warming hype, science is about research, not passing regulations based on a few papers and spending ridiculous sums of money enforcing those regulations to the detriment of the private sector - that's just a ridiculous sum of money spent on beurocracy and bigger government which has absolutely zero to do with science.

    18. Re:stop electing anti science politicians by hondo77 · · Score: 1

      Never happened. Go away, dittohead.

      --
      I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
    19. Re:stop electing anti science politicians by hondo77 · · Score: 1

      Never happened. Go away, dittohead.

      --
      I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
    20. Re: stop electing anti science politicians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Implying he's wrong.

    21. Re: stop electing anti science politicians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe we should privatize science.

      When something is publicly funded, guess what?

      POLITICS INTRUDE.

      Get over it.

    22. Re:stop electing anti science politicians by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      However, the predictions of those who study climate science, and overwhelmingly think we're warming the atmosphere up and it's going to have bad effects, are pretty well on.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    23. Re:stop electing anti science politicians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm a red stater and I'm pro-science and pro-intellectual. What I am not is someone who will sit idly by and let people characterize me and millions of people who identify as conservatives and have them be told they are neanderthalic troglodytes. I won't let you do it here and I won't let it happen to me period. This type of ridiculous abuse has to stop. You are perpetrating abuse on millions of people without a single verifiable assertion to back up your claims.

    24. Re:stop electing anti science politicians by Malachias · · Score: 1

      NASA funding has always been political. At one point it was mostly about earth based science versus space science versus crewed space exploration, but it is also a hearts and minds sort of thing as well. NASA has not done so well on the hearts and mind part since the 60's. Then again, the science community was dead set against Hubble, but hey Hubble was great so now everybody is a fan. NASA got into the climate change debate and they complain about it being political. What did they expect? Climate change is political because not only are there limited funds to throw around but there are all kinds of winners and losers.

      NASA probably looked at climate change as a good source of funding, perhaps a great source of funding, when other sources were drying up. It's not about being relevant; it's about being funded. Whether you are climate change promoter or denier it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that NASA has a vested interest in the outcome of their research -- future funding depends on that outcome, which totally corrupts the scientific process. In any case, going big into climate change paints a big bulls eye on the agency.

      Thinking science and research is above politics is total bullshit.

    25. Re:stop electing anti science politicians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      try to explain the lack of warming over the last 18 years as being from underestimations in your model

      The oceans have been taking most of the warming. So, the atmosphere didn't warm so much as models predicted but oceans got much warmer. All in all, the total amount of excess energy stored in the atmosphere (including oceans) is even higher than predicted (because we have emitted even more CO2 than expected).

      There, easily explained and backed up by data.

  3. wait what? by ganjadude · · Score: 3, Insightful

    the EPA can worry about the environment, leave NASA to what NASA is supposed to do. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Not the climatechange administration. not the muslim outreach administration but the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

    Please give NASA more money, but make sure it is used for space exploration as intended. I dont see why this is getting so much heat

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    1. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The NOAA can worry about climate change with the EPA too.

    2. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Aeronautics occur within the earths atmosphere. To not study it is completely insane. The EPA is a regulatory body. Noaa, Nasa do and should study the atmosphere.

    3. Re:wait what? by mysidia · · Score: 5, Informative

      the EPA can worry about the environment, leave NASA to what NASA is supposed to do.

      The EPA is a regulatory agency, not a science agency. It's not the EPA's job to conduct the research on earth. Their job is to write rules and regulations.

      On the other hand, it is well within the purpose of NASA and NOAA in particular to conduct various studies of things on earth. There should be no interference with scientific inquiry, just because the results might or might not be politically inconvenient.

      I think the whole notion that humans are causing climate change is farcical, overblown, and possibly a fabrication, and yet I still say don't f*ck with NASA. They should continue their research. They should be given more funding to administer judiciously ---- that is, additional funds should be spent on materials and staff actually performing research and additional equipment, with demonstration of justification, not on more bureaucrats or raises/financial incentives for bureaucrats.

      On the other hand.... the scope of NASA is pretty broad and specifically includes Aeronautics in the name. Let's not forget that Earth itself is one of the most accessible planets in space for exploration, and NASA can and should conduct scientific studies on earth that can be useful in understanding natural phenomena in general, and it may very well relate to observations of other planets, so that the study of earth can aid in investigating any planet(s).

    4. Re:wait what? by ganjadude · · Score: 1

      correct. Somehow i clipped NOAA out of my post and overlooked it.

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    5. Re:wait what? by duck_rifted · · Score: 0

      Oh, so the National Weather Service will field and maintain its own weather satellites then, right? And the US Geological Survey will launch its own experiments to gather data too. Intelligence services enabled by space ventures will just need their own launch complexes. Pharmaceutical companies benefiting from research aboard the ISS can build their own space station. I could go on...

      All those things pertain to matters on Earth, and you don't want NASA doing any of them. It COULDN'T be that, I don't know, you can see a lot of the Earth from orbit, can it? Maybe the Earth is part of space, almost like some kind of planet or something? Nah, couldn't be.

    6. Re:wait what? by Baloroth · · Score: 4, Insightful

      the EPA can worry about the environment, leave NASA to what NASA is supposed to do. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

      Arguably, the "aeronautics" bit could be taken as justification for NASA to study the planet. Even if you disagree, NASA's job is to study planets in general, and the easiest example of that is the Earth itself. I mean, the Earth is in space just as much as Mars or the Sun is, after all. And the effects of various gases in the atmosphere is definitely of interest to planetary science, even aside from any general human concerns over climate change.

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    7. Re:wait what? by pipingguy · · Score: 1, Troll

      'Climate Change' is the all-encompassing fashionable (I Fucking Love Science!) term that brings the magic government money - unless you question the orthodoxy, of course.

    8. Re:wait what? by currently_awake · · Score: 0

      If you remove manned space flight from NASA then you've got lots of money for space science. It's not lack of money holding them back, it's throwing it away on stuff that isn't useful.

    9. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Earth is in space?

    10. Re:wait what? by ganjadude · · Score: 1, Insightful

      not the point i was getting at at all. In fact quite the opposite.

      NASA should continue to do all those things... however the funding for them shouyld come from the other orgs that are using them, not NASA.

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    11. Re:wait what? by ganjadude · · Score: 2

      manned spaceflight is way more useful than alot of the stuff that politics are having NASA do now

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    12. Re:wait what? by Misagon · · Score: 2

      NASA were if not the one, then one of the first who discovered the "hole" in the Ozone layer and raised alarm about it.
      This discovery was a tremendously important piece of weather science. You can't argue with that.

      --
      "We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
    13. Re:wait what? by sycodon · · Score: 2

      For not being a Science Agency, they sure do employ a lot of Scientists to justify their regulations.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    14. Re:wait what? by radarskiy · · Score: 2

      "make sure it is used for space exploration as intended"

      Why do you want NASA to go against its objectives spelled out in The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958?

    15. Re:wait what? by duck_rifted · · Score: 0

      That's actually a pretty damn good idea.

    16. Re:wait what? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The NOAA can worry about climate change with the EPA too.

      Phil doesn't seem to think it's worth mentioning that in recent years, NASA's climate study budget has gone up 41% while their space budget only went up 7%.

      That's almost 6 times as much increase for climate as for space. Phil still isn't happy? I don't know what the flat dollar figures are, but clearly climate has been getting attention.

      I am with GP on the main point here: let NASA concentrate on space. And let NOAA and others work on climate. EPA, however, is a vastly self-serving and corrupt organization, and I wouldn't put it in charge of scrubbing toilets.

    17. Re:wait what? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 0, Troll

      For not being a Science Agency, they sure do employ a lot of Scientists to justify their regulations.

      ... and then refuse to tell us who they are or what the science is.

    18. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's posts like this that remind me why I so rarely read slashdot any more.

      The evidence for anthropogenic climate change is simply overwhelming. Your "farcical, overblown, and possibly a fabrication" line shows a gross and dangerous ignorance of the facts. Sadly, it is all too common around here.

    19. Re:wait what? by l810c · · Score: 0, Troll

      I have 2 friends and a relative at 3 different universities that hold higher positions within different science departments.

      Each of them said these 3 things to me.

      1) Don't use my name or Ever tell anyone I told you this.
      2) It's a bunch of political bullshit. It *may* be true that we are warming the planet. But there is absolutely ZERO funding to prove the opposite and by the way, Don't use my name or Ever tell anyone I told you this.
      3) Don't use my name or Ever tell anyone I told you this.

    20. Re:wait what? by riverat1 · · Score: 4, Informative

      The first objective in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Act is: "Expansion of human knowledge of the Earth, the atmosphere and space." Seems to me that's what they're doing.

    21. Re:wait what? by Tailhook · · Score: 1

      When not governed by focused adults NASA evolves in to a "big science" clearing house; the "funder of last resort" for all things "science." In part this is because the agencies these projects should inhabit are huge lawyer farms with zero engineering capability and an active aversion for such. Allowing NOAA/USGS to fob these projects onto NASA only fosters this anti-pattern.

      You see this pattern in other agencies as well. One learns from Madoff transcripts that the only actual mathematician the SEC involved in the investigation was a part-time adjunct professor — whom the lawyers studiously ignored. Same thing during the Toyota SUA hearings; the NTSB lawyers couldn't name an actual automotive engineer in their employ or cite even an approximate figure for how many they might employ. I still don't know if they employ any. All I know is that when they needed answers they called NASA....

      Where overlap is inherent NASA can be contracted, but most of what Earth Science actually needs from space (satellite design, launch services, big data, etc.) is available at lower cost from commercial providers — approximately the same providers that launch satellite TV systems.

      The climate fear mongers will never accept this. The truth is they covet the "NASA says..." credential. NASA is still perceived as a neutral agent, despite the best efforts of Hanson et al., so NASA generated science isn't as easily dismissed as agenda driven science from inherently agenda driven agencies.

      --
      Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
    22. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The evidence for anthropogenic climate change is simply overwhelming.

      Is it though? Has not earth been through many much warmer hot ages? (It has) Also has it not been in many much colder ice-ages? If that is the case, (which it is.) then how can you say with any certainty that we are not simply in a naturally occurring cyclical change in the climate and industrialization either just happen to correlate with with the preexisting and naturally occurring change in climate, or it is only a contributing factor to afore mentioned cyclical change of hot and ice ages.

    23. Re:wait what? by donkwich · · Score: 2

      It *may* be true that we are warming the planet. But there is absolutely ZERO funding to prove the opposite

      Yes there is, it comes from think tanks who aren't big fans of the scientific method.

    24. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The mental gymnastics by the left is just breathtaking sometimes.

    25. Re:wait what? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Most swings were gradual, and the quicker ones were often triggered by large volcanoes and the like. And species often got spanked by them. We'll be one of the spankies this time also.

    26. Re:wait what? by DerekLyons · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Aeronautics occur within the earths atmosphere. To not study it is completely insane.

      "Aeronautics" != "[Enviroment|Climate|Earth Science]".
       

      The EPA is a regulatory body.

      One that has a considerable research arm.

      I'm with the grandparent - NASA should get out of the earth science business (and probably astronomy, and energy efficient houses, and all the pies the bureaucrat have stuck their hands in), leave that to more appropriate agencies.

    27. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the EPA can worry about the environment, leave NASA to what NASA is supposed to do. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

      Arguably, the "aeronautics" bit could be taken as justification for NASA to study the planet. Even if you disagree, NASA's job is to study planets in general, and the easiest example of that is the Earth itself. I mean, the Earth is in space just as much as Mars or the Sun is, after all.

      Running along the same lines, it's not too difficult to construct an argument that NASA's mission should include the study and/or production of LOL-cats.

    28. Re:wait what? by itzly · · Score: 0

      Manned spaceflight is way more romantic. It's not particularly useful or effective.

    29. Re:wait what? by itzly · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But there is absolutely ZERO funding to prove the opposite

      There's funding to do research, and scientists all over the world are working on it. The fact that the opposite doesn't get any proof is not a problem of funding. It's a problem with reality.

    30. Re:wait what? by NoOneInParticular · · Score: 1

      And you truly think this has been overlooked? Hallmark of a cook: scientists are stupid and have completely missed some obvious thing I came up with.

    31. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://history.nasa.gov/spaceact.html

      "To provide for research into problems of flight within and outside the earth's atmosphere, and for other purposes."

      "(1) the term "aeronautical and space activities" means(A) research into, and the solution of, problems of flight within and outside the earth's atmosphere, (B) the development, construction, testing, and operation for research purposes of aeronautical and space vehicles, and (C) such other activities as may be required for the exploration of space; and"

      Clearly, general studies of the atmosphere aren't "problems of flight", which is what the Act/research is clearly intended for.

      Its a very narrow scope, yet, as usual, liberals take the original intent of the law and "reinterpret" it to fit some other/new agenda.

      Let's let NASA get back to focusing on its original narrow scope of flight research, as intended, and stop abusing its original mandate towards other ends.

    32. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Reading works....

      http://history.nasa.gov/spaceact.html

      "To provide for research into problems of flight within and outside the earth's atmosphere, and for other purposes."

      "(1) the term "aeronautical and space activities" means(A) research into, and the solution of, problems of flight within and outside the earth's atmosphere, (B) the development, construction, testing, and operation for research purposes of aeronautical and space vehicles, and (C) such other activities as may be required for the exploration of space; and"

      Clearly, general studies of the atmosphere aren't "problems of flight", which is what the Act/research is clearly intended for.

      Its a very narrow scope, yet, as usual, liberals take the original intent of the law and "reinterpret" it to fit some other/new agenda.

      Let some other agencies handle the general scientific research of earth and the atmosphere, and let's let NASA get back to focusing on its original narrow scope of PROBLEMS OF FLIGHT RESEARCH, as intended, and stop abusing its original mandate towards other ends.

    33. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Read the original Act....

      http://history.nasa.gov/spaceact.html

      "To provide for research into problems of flight within and outside the earth's atmosphere, and for other purposes."

      "(1) the term "aeronautical and space activities" means(A) research into, and the solution of, problems of flight within and outside the earth's atmosphere, (B) the development, construction, testing, and operation for research purposes of aeronautical and space vehicles, and (C) such other activities as may be required for the exploration of space; and"

      Clearly, general studies of the atmosphere aren't "problems of flight", which is what the Act/research is clearly intended for.

      Its a very narrow scope, yet, as usual, liberals take the original intent of the law and "reinterpret" it to fit some other/new agenda.

      There are plenty of other agencies and entities than can do the general scientific research.

      Let NASA get back to focusing on its original narrow scope of flight research, as intended, and stop abusing its original mandate towards other ends.

    34. Re:wait what? by Eunuchswear · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, the left just know how to read, so they know that the first objective of NASA is " The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space."

      http://www.nasa.gov/offices/ogc/about/space_act1.html#POLICY

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    35. Re:wait what? by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

      1. You lie
      2. There is no funding to prove anything. That's not how science works.
      3. There is funding to cast doubt on current theories of climate science -- just ask Willy Soon.

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    36. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I thought the EPA was a regulatory body. You really want them to do basic science, too? I suppose, by extension, that TSA should be funding basic chemistry and microbiology, since explosives and biological agents are "their" thing.

      NASA's earth science program is much bigger than climate change: they measure plate tectonics, oceanic dead zones and erosion, and terrestrial geology - our planet is the best data from which to understand the formation of planets. I'm willing to give Mr. Cruz the benefit of doubt, and hope that he really does simply prefer NASA to focus on outward exploration that inspired his generation. To cut off NASA's earth science just to shield the climate change skeptics would be horribly cynical.

    37. Re:wait what? by khallow · · Score: 1

      Yes. I think though it's more deliberately downplayed than ignored.

    38. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/

      Check the graphs at the bottom.

      It's a problem that needs to be solved - if you don't think that humans have anything to do with its cause, then how can we solve it?

    39. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We're all dumber for having read your post. What you wrote shows willful ignorance of what science has taught us.

      Read this]. The reasons why we know the current warming trend is not cyclical are covered in excruciating detail.

    40. Re:wait what? by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 1

      the EPA can worry about the environment, leave NASA to what NASA is supposed to do.

      The EPA is a regulatory agency, not a science agency. It's not the EPA's job to conduct the research on earth.

      http://www2.epa.gov/research

      Tell you what, I'll pass their phone number along to you so you can set them straight.

    41. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In other words, you don't think scientists are incompetently ignoring data. You think they're deliberately downplaying data. Isn't that fraud?

    42. Re:wait what? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Fine. So then EPA and NOAA get all the budget that's currently allocated to NASA for environment study purposes, right?

    43. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shit son even Mr. Wizard taught me "Don't jump to conclusions." I think scientists are collecting data and turning it into statistics but they're looking at their stats and they're jumping to conclusions. Otherwise, please direct me to the experimental evidence that proves AGW. I must have missed it. Oh the stats *are* the evidence? Yeah, no thanks.

    44. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Almost as if NSA didn't stand for National Space Administration

      Wait it does, right? NSA are those nice fellas who landed on the moon and beat the commies!

      Wait, aeronautics? WTF is that?

    45. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Truth is never a Troll.

    46. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And yet, under President Obama, the head of Nasa went overseas making speeches, declaring that his primary mission as the
      head of Nasa was "to make Muslims feel better about Islam's contributions to science". When the head of Nasa can make such a
      fatuous statement, without blushing, being ridiculed, or being locked up in an insane asylum, something is very, very wrong at Nasa.
      "Global Warming" is for people who can't do math, or even basic arithmetic. It's for people who cannot differentiate temperature from
      heat, power from energy, weather from climate, logic from ad hominem attacks, physics from chemistry. It's for people who claim that
      "weather in space" causes increased volcanic eruptions on earth. It's for the irrational, for the insane, for blindly religious fanatics, and
      and for those who can't count. It's for those who claim that "cooling is caused by warming", without giving any specifics, particulars, or
      even a shred of rational argument. It's for those who are convinced that "electronic masturbation", that is, messing about with simplistic,
      hypothetical models on a computer, is the same thing as physical reality. It isn't. As messy as electronic masturbation is, it isn't nearly
      as messy--or as interesting--as reality.

    47. Re:wait what? by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      the EPA can worry about the environment, leave NASA to what NASA is supposed to do. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Not the climatechange administration. not the muslim outreach administration but the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

        Please give NASA more money, but make sure it is used for space exploration as intended. I dont see why this is getting so much heat

      Sorry, but space is NOT NASA's only mandate.

      NASA's mandate is right there in the name: National AERONAUTICS and Space Administration. In fact, NASA's "space" mandate only came around in the 60s. Prior to that they were known as NACA, the National Advisory Council on Aeronautics.

      NASA's primary goal is actually about aviation. Space was merely tacked on because as a primarily science-based organization, they had the ability to extend their research beyond the atmosphere.

      If you think climate change has nothing to do with aviation, you're wrong. Weather is an extremely important factor in aviation, and long term changes in weather (aka, climate) will have effects to the safety and conduct of flights. Maybe not now, but in the longer term future. It's why NASA does extensive climate studies - it's actually vital. We learned more in the past 50 years of aviation accidents about how weather and changes thereof affect flights - from volcanoes, windshear, microbursts, icing, to many other reasons why planes went down.

      The NTSB investigates accidents and provides recommendations. The FAA implements those recommendations, however, in order to do so it might need to rely on NASA for the technology and know-how in order to make informed decisions about equipment and procedures.

      NOAA? They're part of the Department of Commerce and they're concerned about how climate can affect the economy. It's a different branch of study. NASA's concerned about how climate can affect the atmosphere (which affects how planes fly through the air). While the missions often overlap, there are things NOAA does that doesn't concern NASA (e.g., NOAA monitors icebergs with Canada - this was established a year after the Titanic sank. But iceberg monitoring isn't important to NASA (since that primarily affects ships at sea). However, how the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets behave IS since that does have climate implications that could impact flight).

    48. Re:wait what? by leptons · · Score: 1

      Guess where the earth is located - IN SPACE, YOU MORON. You sound like you think the earth is sitting on some mantle in god's office or something. We're on a rock floating around "outer space" with lots of other rocks. This is enough reason for NASA to be studying the earth as much as it wants/needs to.

    49. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So we shouldn't study, on Earth, how to make a self-sustainable society, which would be useful for...you know...living on other planets, energy efficiency which is useful for things like propulsion, space satellites, powered rovers, environmental sciences which would be useful for terraforming and understanding how other environments would work or astronomy, which is the study of stars in space, which we would need to know about before we could make any real determinations on where to go in space. You obviously have no understanding of how science is integrated and that overlapping areas of expertise are not only common, but necessary.

      For the car analogy you're suggesting Ford not study materials sciences, fuel efficiency, chemistry, or road construction because these aren't core to building vehicles. You may be able to ship cars, but it's specifically the study of the ancillary fields that allows you to make lighter, faster, more fuel efficient cars that are more resistant to rust and fail in predictable ways when they do fail, all while delivering a comfortable ride at an affordable price.

      Furthermore, it is specifically the domain of the government to discover costly new technologies and then allow private industries to capitalize on them.

    50. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Earth" was a later addition. The original first objective was:

              "The expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space;"

      https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/National_Aeronautics_and_Space_Act_of_1958#Sec._102._Declaration_of_Policy_and_Purpose

      Adding "Earth" was classic bureaucratic mission creep.

    51. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, and on top of that: the same "charlatans" who are up in arms about this had absolutely NO qualms about Obama making part of NASA's new goals to make Muslims feel good about their contributions to science. If this isn't completely political and adrift from what NASA should be doing, I don't know what is.

    52. Re:wait what? by hondo77 · · Score: 1

      Never happened. Go away, dittohead.

      --
      I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
    53. Re:wait what? by khallow · · Score: 2
      I guess you'll have to decide for yourself. This is the sort of thing I'm speaking of (my comment on it at bottom). I apologize for the vast length of the quotes, but it is useful because it demonstrates a consider amount of doubt about the "Hockey Stick", a very important climate change artifact of the few years around the Second and Third Assessment reports of the IPCC.

      Case closed? Hardly. The CRU emails reveal internal doubts about this entire enterprise both before and after the hockey stick made its debut. In a 1996 email to a large number of scientists in the CRU circle, Tom Wigley, a top climatologist working at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, cautioned: "I support the continued collection of such data, but I am disturbed by how some people in the paleo community try to oversell their product." Mann and his colleagues made use of some of the CRU data, but some of the CRU scientists weren't comfortable with the way Mann represented it and also seemed to find Mann more than a bit insufferable.

      CRU scientist Keith Briffa, whose work on tree rings in Siberia has been subject to its own controversies, emailed Edward Cook of Columbia University: "I am sick to death of Mann stating his reconstruction represents the tropical area just because it contains a few (poorly temperature representative) tropical series," adding that he was tired of "the increasing trend of self-opinionated verbiage [Mann] has produced over the last few years ... and (better say no more)."

      Cook replied: "I agree with you. We both know the probable flaws in Mike's recon[struction], particularly as it relates to the tropical stuff. Your response is also why I chose not to read the published version of his letter. It would be too aggravating. ... It is puzzling to me that a guy as bright as Mike would be so unwilling to evaluate his own work a bit more objectively."

      In yet another revealing email, Cook told Briffa: "Of course [Bradley] and other members of the MBH [Mann, Bradley, Hughes] camp have a fundamental dislike for the very concept of the MWP, so I tend to view their evaluations as starting out from a somewhat biased perspective, i.e. the cup is not only 'half-empty'; it is demonstrably 'broken'. I come more from the 'cup half-full' camp when it comes to the MWP, maybe yes, maybe no, but it is too early to say what it is."

      In another email to Briffa, Cook complains about Bradley, too: "His air of papal infallibility is really quite nauseating at times."

      Even as the IPCC was picking up Mann's hockey stick with enthusiasm, Briffa sent Mann a note of caution about "the possibility of expressing an impression of more consensus than might actually exist. I suppose the earlier talk implying that we should not 'muddy the waters' by including contradictory evidence worried me. IPCC is supposed to represent consensus but also areas of uncertainty in the evidence." Briffa had previously dissented from the hockey stick reconstruction in a 1999 email to Mann and Phil Jones: "I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1000 years ago." Even Malcolm Hughes, one of the original hockey stick coauthors, privately expressed reservations about overreliance on their invention, writing to Cook, Mann and others in 2002:

      All of our attempts, so far, to estimate hemisphere-scale temperatures for the period around 1000 years ago are based on far fewer data than any of us would like. None of the datasets used so far has anything like the geographical distribution that experience with recent centuries indicates we need, and no one has yet found a convincing way of validating the lower-frequency components of them against independent data. As Ed [Cook] wrote, in the tree-ring records that form the backbone of most of the published estimates, the problem of poor replication near the beginnin

    54. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      right, and the ostriches are going to give the EPA a huge budget to take over earth studies. I don't think so. Studying the planet, using our space-going ability, is full-on part of NASA's mission. That we have idiots on the hill is not their fault.

    55. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Data IS statistics, dumbass. Just another bit of statistics that correlate to you deniers being utter buffoons.

    56. Re:wait what? by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      As others have pointed out NASA's study of Earth provides insights into the study of other planets as well.

    57. Re:wait what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yea - everybody knows that the EPA is above playing politics....sorry couldn't say that without cracking up. To bad Teddy isn't over the EPA. Most of these agencies are used to push some agenda, science and critical thinking is no longer applied. The current oval office resident, (no matter the party) should impact an agency's decisions.

    58. Re:wait what? by DeVilla · · Score: 1

      Same thing used to be true of manned flight.

    59. Re:wait what? by DeVilla · · Score: 1

      And if a member of the DNR discovers a dead body, does that mean DNR needs to do more murder investigations? NASA gave us velcro. I don't think that means they should be expected to fund research in leisurewear.

    60. Re:wait what? by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      Let me make an ad hominem attack on your source. The Weekly Standard : they're no better than neo-nazis. It's a propanganda mouthpiece founded to get the US to invade and occupy Iraq for fuck's sake. They're more interested in killing people than in facts.

    61. Re:wait what? by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

      I won't say the case for AGW has nothing going for it other than ad hominem attacks ...

      ... but its proponents contend for it as if it did.

      The style is the message.

  4. Price of politicizing science by Karmashock · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Neither side is pure here. I think NASA briefly said their mission was muslim outreach for example. Why would they do that? Does that have something to do with space?

    Just politics.

    And NASA has been staffed not just with scientists but wtih scientists that are big democrat supporters. So... guess what, the republicans are going to want to suppress them.

    Same thing happened in NYC with tammany hall. Every time parties would switch, the new party would staff the city institutions with political appointees that supported that political party. Everything. Fire departments, police departments, park service, road workers, etc... just everything. Parties would switch and everyone in authority in the city would lose their job.

    And that meant that in part the people that did things were often not competent because they weren't on the job that long. And also you'd get a lot of corruption because if lots of people lose their jobs when the parties switch everyone is more inclined to cheat or stuff ballot boxes.

    This was ultimately dealt with to some extent by protecting certain institutions from being used that way.

    But there is no such protection in Federal agencies. They get used all the time. You can't tell me that the EPA or the ATF or whatever are doing the same thing under a democrat that they'd be doing under a republican. You can't tell me that they're being run by the same sorts of people or under the same guidelines.

    It swings back and forth because all these institutions are political footballs at this point.

    So complain about it if you want but nothing is going to change unless that stops. And it needs to stop for BOTH sides. Not just the side you don't like. If one side can do it, then the other side can do it.

    So think very carefully about what you're asking for and understand there are going to be consequences.

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    1. Re:Price of politicizing science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think this is the exact reason why the founders of the USA wanted a limited federal system. If you have a limited mandate, you have limited funding and resources. Scope creep.

      You are correct that both sides do it. Doesn't make it right. When you have the federal law, the power of policing and the ability to raise unlimited sums of money... What the people want is really irrelevant.

    2. Re:Price of politicizing science by Karmashock · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm not saying it is right. I think it is wrong of course.

      The issue is that it will take biparstain support to fix it. Both parties are going to have to realize that the greater good is in letting go and having the various institutions do their jobs rather then be tools for the political games the administration of the moment is playing.

      Democrats are going to be pissed at me here, but even many of your own people have realized that Obama is pushing the power of his executive orders to the limit. The border patrol is outright complaining about the nonsense they're being told to do by the administration in contravention of their actual legal guidelines.

      JUST ONE example. And I'm not saying republicans don't do this crap too. But Obama is doing it to a greater extent than any president I can think of with the possible exception of FDR... and that guy literally threatened the Supreme Court that if they didn't approve what he wanted, he'd appoint more people to the court until by simple numbers his view over ruled them.

      So... not great company to be in really unless you want to go fight WW2 again.

      Point is, the system is so heavily politicized at this point that you can't cry foul anymore unless you're advocating for systematic reform.

      You can't just point at ONE thing someone does and say "that's wrong" because its ALL WRONG. The whole system is terminally fucked up and it is getting much worse much faster than it ever has before.

      Is Ted Cruz a dick for saying NASA is being used to push global warming stuff? No more so than Obama is a dick for making global warming NASA's number one priority. What exactly does that have to do with space exploration?

      And here someone will say "but nasa has the ability to launch weather sats!"... Which has nothing to do with anything because NASA could launch them while another department actually monitors that data.

      In which case, if Ted Cruz went after anything, he'd go after that institution rather then NASA.

      Again... there are no virgins here. Everyone is compromised. Everything is corrupted. Bitching about one thing without going for systematic reform is just going to serve as a tool for the other side to gain an advantage.

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    3. Re:Price of politicizing science by bhlowe · · Score: 2, Insightful

      NASA was established to get America into space and to keep us there. If you want to go to space, don't have the chief of NASA say the President said to focus on making Muslims feel good. If you want to go to space, you have to put a LOT of carbon into the atmosphere. If Obama cared about carbon, he wouldn't have flown to California on TWO 747's on the same day. Its all politics.

    4. Re: Price of politicizing science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      But there is no such protection in Federal agencies.

      Unless, of course, you've heard of the Pendleton Act.

      Surely, it is possible for somebody to tell you about that, right?

      You might declare it to be ineffective in your opinion, but to do that, you have to at least recognize its existence. This isn't 1882.

      PS, that bit about NASA? Was a softball pitch to pander in an interview on Al-jazera(so clearly playing to the crowd there), not any kind of statement of any actual substantive agency policy. At most you can complain that the administrator in question expressed himself poorly (He admitted to that, so whatever), but it really had no larger meaning, and in context you can hear mention of other things in the same interview.

      The head of NASA is a PR post anyway, the real work is done further down.

      People who got worked up over that were really freaking over nothing of consequence. He'd say the same thing on Australian, Chinese, or Russian TV for all it mattered. Not Polish though. They keep trying to convince us that sending a rocket to the sun will work if it is launched at night. Sigh.

       

    5. Re: Price of politicizing science by kenh · · Score: 1

      That's a good try, but the White House stood behind the NASA Administrator's words - it wasn't the 'conversational puffery' you want to portray it as...

      Remember when then President-elect Obama promised to "put science back in it's rightful place"? I guess you just find it hard to believe that in President Obama's opinion the 'rightful place' for science is in the service of making foreigners feel better about themselves.

      --
      Ken
    6. Re:Price of politicizing science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      . I think NASA briefly said their mission was muslim outreach for example. Why would they do that?

      Because designing a system that orients you towards Mecca from LEO is an interesting engineering challenge for some bored engeineer's weekend. Then some Mullah comes along and issues a fatwah saying that you can just bow towards the Earth and it's OK, so it's like Muslim stuff just isn't interesting any more... /jk.

    7. Re: Price of politicizing science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's one interpretation.

      Then there are others, some of them with a bit of followup.

      http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/12/white-house-muslim-outreach-task-nasa/

      NASA last week walked back Bolden's claim that Muslim outreach was the "perhaps foremost" plank of his mission, saying that Bolden was merely talking about his "outreach" responsibilities and that space exploration is still NASA's No. 1 job.

      But Gibbs on Monday appeared to deny that Bolden was asked to focus on Muslim outreach at all.

      Asked whether Bolden misspoke, Gibbs said: "I think so."

      Really, big political kerfluffe over nothing was all it was, and all it will ever be. NASA administrator does interview on Arab television. Says something to appease the audience. Speaks it a bit poorly, but it never meant anything anyway, so never had any impact. Never was either.

      Even this is more substantial:

      http://www.debbieschlussel.com/24268/sadly-obama-not-1st-to-use-nasa-for-islamo-outreach-reagan-bush-were/

      I get it, you want to believe there's some big scandal behind it, that NASA was destroyed, but the truth is that the Space program has been used for PR purposes since they picked some handsome pilots to do interviews. And the Soviets did the same. Heck, they even kept their director's name hidden for the PR value.

      Welcome to the world of propaganda. Check out the Royal Family's schedule. Same meaningless shit. Maybe we'll send another teacher to space to grow irradiated tomatoes while hugging a cosmonaut.

      Look, you can believe it had a real impact till the cows come home, but the real pork is being served elsewhere. Politicians love to bring home the bacon. That sweet, delicious bacon.

    8. Re:Price of politicizing science by Talderas · · Score: 0

      Are we in space yet? What's the hold up? Gotta go to space. Gotta go to space!

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    9. Re:Price of politicizing science by dywolf · · Score: 2

      Again.
      We've covered this stuff before.
      We keep covering it.
      You keep not getting it.

      http://www.politifact.com/pund...
      http://www.politifact.com/texa...

      "Scientists who are big democrat supporters" ..
      That's just BS. It's called Civil Service.
      There are no purgings of the civil service based on ideology.

      And again you operate under the assumption that independent agencies are micromanaged by the administration. You still don't comprehend what independent agencies are or how they operate, even though you yourself mentioned exactly how its done: "by protecting certain institutions from being used this way" ... by creating them as independent agencies. they aren't part of the administration and they aren't part of the congress. They are a melding of both, largely free from either as long as they operate within their mandate or charter.

      Your ignorance is repetitive and borin

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    10. Re:Price of politicizing science by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      Then when NASA said their mission was muslim outreach, that was totally normal.

      In any case, all you're saying is that politicizing the institution is okay.

      Fine. Tammany Hall it is then. The next administration will just purge the institutions of people not loyal to his administration... and then the one after that will do the same thing. And the institutions will swing back and forth here after.

      Happy?

      Good. That is what you're going to get. Good and hard.

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    11. Re: Price of politicizing science by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      You are apparently under the impression that the current administration cares about the law.

      They're outright doing their best to bypass congress in everything which is against not only the letter of MANY laws but is also against the sprint of the nation's whole principle.

      So... why would you think your law was something they cared about when they clearly don't even care about the constitution?

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    12. Re:Price of politicizing science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed. Here are two links to the NASA/Muslim bizzareness: http://www.space.com/8725-nasa-chief-bolden-muslim-remark-al-jazeera-stir.html and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/7875584/Barack-Obama-Nasa-must-try-to-make-Muslims-feel-good.html. NASA's mission has degraded significantly under Pres. Obama. Personally I oppose the massive privatization of NASA's mission, undertaken by the President.

    13. Re: Price of politicizing science by Talderas · · Score: 1

      The Pendleton Act only really applies to "firing" civil service employees and for the hiring of employees through the OPM. Presidential appointees only qualify under the first part since they don't go through the OPM for hiring. There are two "mandatory" customs that make the Pendleton Act all but meaningless for presidential appointees. The first is that individuals in appointed positions are "required" to submit resignations to the new incoming President. The Pendleton Act does not prevent people from resigning so it provides a neat and clean way for a new President to purge the previous President's appointees without crossing the act. The second custom is that a President, or more likely one of his aides, can ask one of the current appointees to submit a resignation. If you're in the same party as the President, or one of his appointments, you will typically not refuse to do so and even people who aren't in the President's party are still usually going to submit a resignation.

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    14. Re:Price of politicizing science by Talderas · · Score: 1

      Presidential appointees are "required" to hand in a resignation letter to a new incoming President. At that point the President can choose to accept or reject a resignation based on whatever criteria the President wants. Such a custom ensures that appointees are purged for ideology.

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    15. Re:Price of politicizing science by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      Privatization is the only way out of it.

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    16. Re:Price of politicizing science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you never heard of the federal civil service? Only the Presidential appointees at the very top of a department, bureau or administration leave office after an election. 99 percent of the staff in the government are protected by the civil service and can only be fired with cause and a civil service review process. Of course that doesn't stop the congressionally confirmed presidential appointees from doing what ever is in their power to channel the government's activities in one direction or another. But to an extent that is what we have elections for, to give the levers of power to someone to go ahead and, you know, do things with that power.

    17. Re:Price of politicizing science by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      You're right, its not possible for federal agencies to be compromised by political interests. Sorry for saying such a stupid thing.

      Of course that just can't happen. Because some law... totally over whelms any other force. Obviously.

      Harumph!
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

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    18. Re:Price of politicizing science by hondo77 · · Score: 1

      Then when NASA said their mission was muslim outreach, that was totally normal.

      Never happened. Go away.

      --
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    19. Re:Price of politicizing science by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/po...

      Actually it did.

      Apologize.

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    20. Re:Price of politicizing science by hondo77 · · Score: 1

      Never happened. Go away.

      --
      I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
    21. Re:Price of politicizing science by hondo77 · · Score: 0

      Never happened. Go away, dittohead.

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    22. Re:Price of politicizing science by hondo77 · · Score: 1

      Read again, dimwit. Put the mac & cheese down and pay attention this time. The President tasked the head of NASA with three things, muslim outreach being the top of those tasks. NOWHERE does it state that those tasks were NASA's top priorities. They were tasks, nothing more. Stop listening to Limbaugh and you might actually...oh, nevermind.

      --
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    23. Re:Price of politicizing science by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      No, you read again, fucktard.

      ""A few days ago, in Cairo, Bolden told Al Jazeera that when he became the NASA administrator, President Obama charged him with three things""

      Three things he was charged to do when he became head of NASA.

      What are those three things?

      1. One, he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math.

      2. he wanted me to expand our international relationships

      3. third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and engineering â" science, math and engineering.

      Now you say "no where does it say those were his top priorities, however, those were the three things the president asked him to do when he took over the post.

      YOUR argument rests on the assumption that the first things YOUR BOSS tells you to do when you are given a job are not top priorities?

      You are a fucking idiot.

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    24. Re:Price of politicizing science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know, the republicans could try appealing to intelligent, scientifically literate, thinking people, and then there might be more of them who voted republican. that's not NASA's problem, that's republican shame. not that they experience shame, I agree, because shame requires self-awareness and a conscience.

    25. Re:Price of politicizing science by bhlowe · · Score: 2

      The Chief of NASA did say it while on an official trip to Egypt participating in Muslim outreach. So it happened, and for political reasons. Watch the video, and tell me it didn't happen. Politifact is a left wing organization, and now you have proof.

    26. Re:Price of politicizing science by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      The republicans are not a monothlic group anymore than are the democrats.

      Lets say I picked the most foaming at the mouth bat shit crazy democrats you've ever seen... and then suggested that all democrats were like that. How reasonable would that be?

      That's what you just did. And it is a common tactic used by BOTH sides.

      When the republicans talk about democrats they like to talk about the fringe. The really crazy ones that make even people in their own party cringe.

      And when the democrats talk about republicans they like to talk about the fringe as well. The really crazy republicans that make people even in their own party cringe.

      Do you see what happened here?

      You'd do well to be a bit more self aware least you get mindfucked by one faction or another. They are all disinterested in anyone thinking for themselves. Every faction wants you to think like they think, reject all opposing views, close your mind, and mindlessly fight against their various opposition.

      I am not a robot. I refuse to be programmed. Think to your own mind before you question the minds of others.

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    27. Re:Price of politicizing science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tuo quoque, eh? Maybe just because you tend to see things in your own polarized, politized perspective.

      Why should NASA be involved in climate change research? According to the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, NASA has the following objectives, among others: "The expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space", "The preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology and in the application thereof to the conduct of peaceful activities within and outside the atmosphere."

    28. Re:Price of politicizing science by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      I have no problem with that so long as your objective is expanding knowledge. But it is more than that and you know it.

      And if you really want to play the game of "well who can say and maybe it is and maybe it isn't"... then fine. You're just opting out of a rational discussion and saying you think you can win the politics.

      And that's fine. But it has a price.

      When you cross these lines there are prices to pay. If you don't want to pay them then step back across the line. There is no having it both ways.

      I have no problem with NASA exploring fields of knowledge especially as they are related to space exploration. Use them as a domestic political tool and you've just put a foot in the ring.

      You put your foot in the ring and it is game on. You don't get to walk into the ring, throw a sucker punch, and then cry foul when the opposition puts you in a head lock.

      YOU stepped in the ring.

      Stay out of politics and politics will leave you alone. If science wants to avoid politics then don't make political alliances or do the dirty work of various political factions. You enter the ring you're in the fight.

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    29. Re:Price of politicizing science by Stuarticus · · Score: 1

      I think this is the exact reason why the founders of the USA wanted a limited federal system.

      Yes, yes, that's exactly why they wanted it, so that in future space agencies wouldn't do research into shit you're not interested in. How terribly prescient of them.

      --
      If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
  5. Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Geez ...

    Don't you guys ever get tired of bashing Ted Cruz?

    This is Slashdot, not some liberal media outlet specially set up to beat up people who do not agree with the liberal ideology

    We are here to discuss science, not to bash up politicians just because they belong to so and so camp

    C'mon folks, wake the fuck up!

    We are beating each others to pulp on issues like abortions / police brutality / TSA at the airport while other countries are rapidly gaining grounds

    Wasting webspace and valuable time in beating each others up don't get us forward, man! Grow the fuck up, please !

    1. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      It's relevant because while not all Republicans are anti-science, nearly all anti-science people are Republicans. If you take a survey of people who believe the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, I'll bet more than 80% voted for Romney in 2012.

    2. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      And if you took a poll of all the people who won't vaccinate their child, I bet more than 80% voted for Obama. So what exactly is your point?

    3. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by ganjadude · · Score: 1, Insightful

      nearly all anti-science people are Republicans

      Explain anti vaxxers

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    4. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by maccodemonkey · · Score: 1

      We are beating each others to pulp on issues like abortions / police brutality / TSA at the airport while other countries are rapidly gaining grounds

      "Why aren't we talking about how great at playing fiddle we are? All I see people talking about is how Rome is burning."

      If it makes anyone feel better, the Chinese version of this guy will be China's downfall. While China is busy worrying about the strength of their economy, they're literally turning their major cities into giant clouds of pollution. The dip in their life expectancy will probably send their health care costs sky high, and not being able to gently onramp into a super power scale economy will lead to huge political issues down the line.

      But hey, at least they spent all their time worried about other countries instead of themselves.

    5. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Plenty of them are Republicans, Democrats, and independents. In fact, most of the ones I know are self described Libertarians (the hurray for me and fuck you kind).

    6. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really, at 80% I'd take the 'under' and safely make money. If half did vote for Obama, it's mostly because he got more than 60% of those in current child bearing years. However, it's almost exclusively the GOP media and politicians who are pushing the anti-vax rhetoric into the media, so if you really want to 'help' maybe you should get your public voice in line. Right wingers are too prone to fantasy to have a rational discussion on any topic.

    7. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by ganjadude · · Score: 1, Informative

      try harder. the highest rates of vax are in the south while the lowest levels are in cali. Its a fact that democrats tend to be the anti vaxers

      --
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    8. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by bmo · · Score: 1

      >The earth being less than 10,000 years old is not anti science.

      But it is, and your username fits.

      Don't you ever read your own posts?

      --
      BMO

    9. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by ganjadude · · Score: 2

      except for the studies dont back your claim up. Cali seems to be the biggest anti vax state - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    10. Re: Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by kenh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      NASA should worry more about space exploration,
      the FAA should focus on commercial aviation,
      the EPA should worry more about air quality,
      and the NWS should worry more about the climate.

      Just because something should be studied, doesn't mean every branch of government needs to be involved.

      --
      Ken
    11. Re: Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by riverat1 · · Score: 4, Informative

      The first A in NASA stands for Aeronautics. If you're going to do aeronautics you need to know about the medium you are flying through. In the 1958 act that created NASA the first objective is: "Expansion of human knowledge of the Earth, the atmosphere and space". Also artificial satellites are now an integral part of studying the Earth. I think it's kind of hard for NASA to not be involved to some extent in all of the things you list.

    12. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by StevenMaurer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In short, nothing in science proves the earth is older than 10,000 year old. In only proves that it could be older and doesn't need the creation explanation. Or in other words, you cannot disprove that a supernatural being supernaturally created things with the appearance of a natural beginning simply for our understanding.

      You fundamentally fail to understand science, "sumdumass". No hypothesis is ever proven right in science. It simply offers testable hypotheses that would falsify it, and then when such discoveries are made, survives the new information unchanged. When a hypothesis survives enough of these attempts, scientists will call it a theory, and start to believe it to be true.

      The problem with the "God planted the dinosaur bones (and the light of the universe, and stratification in sediments, radioactive dating, and the tens of thousands of interlocking details that show us how long the earth has been around, etc., etc., etc.)" idea, is that it offers no falsifiable predictions. There is literally no fact that an adherent to one of these belief systems would accept as proof it is incorrect. All of these ideas stem from magical thinking, and so, in the immortal words of Wolfgang Pauli, they're not only not right, they're "not even wrong".

      That is not science. And it is absurd to pretend as such.

      (Alas, your attitude is quite common among the religious right and a tiny sprinkling of the kook left, which is a big reason why politics is doing such a disservice to science.)

    13. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by riverat1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Explain anti vaxxers

      Anti-vaxxers are spread pretty evenly across the political spectrum. In fact a study published in December 2014 found that conservative Republicans are very slightly more likely to hold anti-vax views than liberal Democrats. You can see the pretty graph here.

    14. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by riverat1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The earth being less than 10,000 years old is not anti science.

      It's not even wrong.

    15. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Do you realize that many of those California counties with the lowest vaccination rates are solidly GOP, compare your map with this one.

      In reality to settle it we'd need some serious cross tabs on questions that have never seemed to been asked together. However, I still remain confident that 80% is an gross exaggeration and I would win any bet on it.

    16. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by donkwich · · Score: 1

      You mean like noted liberal Alex Jones?

    17. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by pslytely+psycho · · Score: 2

      There's a homerun. What you said is much more far reaching than it first appears. You just indited the entire educational system! You have shown it leaves people of all political stripes vulnerable to junk science. Crap like Facebook and others post garbage as fact, and most people are unable to think clearly enough to tell shit from shinola as my dad used to put it. Each side just picks up a different set of flags to shamefully wave!

      And it's been the same throughout history, it just happens a lot faster now that nearly all have a voice, which in turn, makes it seem like it's worse since it is so visible. Asshats have always been the loudest. They just get to be a lot louder now. We had anti-vaxers when polio was still a thing when I was a kid, they just didn't have much of a voice.

      Of course, it does occasionally work towards the better. That same social media has helped make positive changes as well...(puff, puff, pass....)

      --
      Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
    18. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Or in other words, you cannot disprove that a supernatural being supernaturally created things with the appearance of a natural beginning simply for our understanding.

      Just to amplify what Steven said, the idea that God would create the world and then purposely give it "the appearance of a natural beginning simply for our understanding" suggests that God would A) Give us the ability to think rationally B) Require us to be honest and truthful, and then C) Intentionally deceive us as to the origin of our planet by carefully constructing not only a vast series of fossils, but also creating isotopes in rocks that behave in ways that suggest the earth is 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years old. And don't even start on what the Hubble has discovered. REALLY?????????? GOD IS THAT DEVIOUS AND DECEPTIVE? WAKE UP!!!!!! What you have said not only fails the laugh test as far as scientific understanding goes, but also fails to provide a credible religious alternative. Now, I believe in God, but what you have said is not only pure anti-science nonsense, it is an insult to people who believe in both science and God. You have insulted the intelligence God gave me. OF COURSE I can't disprove a supernatural being didn't create the world 10,000 years ago. I can't even prove you are not actually Satan, either. If the burden of proof is on me, I can't even prove words exist. But, as Steven said, the point of science is falsifiable predictions.

      If you propose a supernatural, omnipotent being that created the whole world less than 10,000 years ago, then use it to make a prediction about the future. Predict the time of a sunrise, or an eclipse, using your theory. Then we will go out and watch. Ask God to tell you when the next eclipse will be. He's omnipotent, right? He should tell you. Hold on, I will ask God myself. Um, he just told me the next solar eclipse will be January 15, 2020. Was he right? OH, you say I wasn't really talking to God? PROVE IT! YOU CAN'T DISPROVE IT, can you? Oh, and he just told me he decided a long time ago to make your IQ lower than mine. You can't disprove that, can you?

    19. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      .... And the areas of worst vaccination rates are the REPUBLICAN areas of Cali.

      Go on, look it up. It's pretty cool to see how concentrated the stupid is.

    20. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by sumdumass · · Score: 2

      You must have a very dificult time with reading comprehension. I never said the concept was scientific, i said you cannot use science to disprove it. Therefore saying the earth is 10,000 years old is not anti science, its just unscientific.

      But go ahead and froth at the mouth toughting what you wany to have been said instead of what was said.

      By the way, i know exactly how science is supposed to work and calling people anti science because of beliefs science cannot falsify is more anti science than the gp envisioned some religious idiot as being because the gp is pretending yo come from a scientific stance. That's like crashing you car and swearing you are a good driver.

    21. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 1, Insightful

      While I don't agree with the OP, it does seem to be gratuitous bashing of Cruz. AFAIK what he's pointing out is that NASA was chartered to explore space (the NOAA, not NASA, was chartered to do climate research), and yet in my entire lifetime, apart from the 1970s-era Space Shuttle, the only thing of note they've managed to do in this area is launch a few remote/robot probes. Holy fsck, this is an organisation with an $18 billion/year budget that's done basically nothing to further getting mankind into space since the Apollo program ended over forty years ago. They've been busy dicking around with various expensive toys for the last several decades, cancelling one pie-in-the-sky project after another, and presumably will be relying on some of their huge budget to eventually rent room on Russian, or Chinese, or Indian, or whoever else gets there, missions to the moon or Mars.

      Looked at another way, if some pro-science senator came along and told them to get their s**t together, would there be such an outcry?

    22. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unfortunately since the good old days of /., the average readers age has gone down. That means politics have moved to the left, which means that "they" are responsible for everything.

      One day, these commenters will grow up away from socialism ( which is really teen angst in a political form ).

    23. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You just indited the entire educational system!

      ganjadude just wrote the syllabus for the entire education system? No, I don't believe you. Perhaps you meant to use the word "indicted" instead.

    24. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem with the "God planted the dinosaur bones (and the light of the universe, and stratification in sediments, radioactive dating, and the tens of thousands of interlocking details that show us how long the earth has been around, etc., etc., etc.)" idea, is that it offers no falsifiable predictions.

      The other problem is that if some supernatural being did do that then they being deliberately deceptive. To the point that one might describe this supernatural being as a "Prince of Lies".

    25. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Imrik · · Score: 2

      Democrats are equally vulnerable to beliefs not supported by science, it just isn't pointed out as often on liberal sites and media.

    26. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Eunuchswear · · Score: 5, Informative

      AFAIK what he's pointing out is that NASA was chartered to explore space

      Oh, yeah?

      The National Aeronautics and Space Act

      SUBCHAPTER I--SHORT TITLE, DECLARATION OF POLICY, AND DEFINITIONS

      Sec. 20102. Congressional declaration of policy and purpose

      (d) Objectives of Aeronautical and Space Activities.--The aeronautical and space activities of the United States shall be conducted so as to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives:

              (1) The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space.

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    27. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by bmo · · Score: 1

      You must have a very dificult time with reading comprehension. I never said the concept was scientific, i said you cannot use science to disprove it. Therefore saying the earth is 10,000 years old is not anti science, its just unscientific.

      Oh hey look, a semantics argument that is absolutely bereft of logic.

      Insisting that the Earth is 10,000 years old /is/ anti-science because it requires one to completely ignore the evidence to the contrary and to embrace a folk tale that is the sole evidence "for" it. It requires vehemently closing one's eyes to the world.

      Science requires observation. It's right there in the definition of the "scientific method" as understood by just about anyone with functioning neurons. Refusing to observe is therefore anti-science.

      Q.E. motherfucking D.

      Now go play in traffic. Because I assure you that if you shut your eyes to the automobiles whizzing around you, they will disappear.

      --
      BMO

    28. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by wbr1 · · Score: 1

      Red or blue or green, there is no monopoly on stupidity. Just that the various stupidities differ.

      --
      Silence is a state of mime.
    29. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by wbr1 · · Score: 1

      NASA has done great things on a limited budget. When you speak of cancelling pie in the sky projects, that is not NASAs doing, that is some administration, or congresscriters pushing for a project, funding it to pass pork around to their corporate constituents or bring 'jobs' to their state, then them or another group cancelling it later because OMG costs so much! When it is a fraction of the defense budget,

      --
      Silence is a state of mime.
    30. Re: Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Telling NOAA not to partner with the space agency is akin to tying them up and tossing them in a cabinet. They cannot study what they cannot see.

    31. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 1

      Explain anti vaxxers

      Anti-vaxxers are spread pretty evenly across the political spectrum. In fact a study published in December 2014 found that conservative Republicans are very slightly more likely to hold anti-vax views than liberal Democrats.

      Uh, yeah, but only one side is yelling "anti-science" at the other. There should be *no* liberal Democrats on the anti-vax side if I were to believe the bullshit coming from that side.

      Both sides are anti-science, just in different ways. But it's only the Democrats who try to use this as a political point.

    32. Re: Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by afxgrin · · Score: 1

      NASA needs to study the multivariable behaviour of Earth's climate to better understand the climate of other planets. It's cheap and easy, and provides lots of science relative to larger space exploration missions with limited capability. How the fuck can we make claims about a far off planet's atmosphere from light spectrum observations alone if we can't come to a consensus on our own planet's atmosphere?

    33. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by afxgrin · · Score: 1

      This is the result of getting jerked around by politicians every few years. America got to the moon because it was something everyone could agree upon that would stick it to the Ruskies!

      After doing the bulk r&d for the Apollo project, the budget sort of tapered off ... https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...

      It's like every President since Kennedy felt they needed to give NASA some long term objective just to have the following Presidency give them something else, and have both House and Senate subcommittees give their two cents on objectives and funding.

      It's just a recipe for the bullshit you see right now.

    34. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by dywolf · · Score: 1

      no its not a fact, and what you're referring to is a percentage, not a raw number.
      antivax is pretty much bipartisan stupidity, though we should note that following
      Obama's endorsement of vaccines a whole bunch of republicans suddenly found
      themselves in the antivax camp.

      be even crediting your base statement as true, which it isn't, that still
      leaves the anti-science score: GOP: 7, Dems: 1.

      so the whole "you're just as we are" card is pure bull.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    35. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by sumdumass · · Score: 0

      Wrong, wrong, wrong. It does not in any way require anyone to ignore evidence,, they can perfectly well accept the evidence as part of a more grand scheme that happens to not be scientific. As i already pointed out, the evidence being part of the creation for whatever reason is how that can happen. Its no different that 2(1+1) and 2+2 both equalling 4. Science can do nothing about that either because science cannot falsify it.

      Anyone trying to claim science disproves religion or who is focused on people with religious beliefs is simply unscientific. They are actually more of the religious mindset than anything. You can "not believe" their claims but it would not be because of anything scientific. It would be because the claims are not scientific.

      Now i know your all pissed off because your worldview doesn't fit with the reality of the situation. But that would not have happened if you did not make unscientific claims as if they were. In short, you are just wrong.

    36. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by dywolf · · Score: 1

      false equivalence.
      antivaxers exist on both sides.

      antivaxxers and anti-scientific attitudes and beliefs in the left are a tiny minority, consisting of a tiny group of anti-vaxers and anti-gmos.
      but there's a slightly larger number of anti-vaxxers and anti-gmos among the Right.

      so that's a wash.

      but then you also have to consider all the anti-science attitudes and beliefs which are wholly owned by the Right and unlike the antivaxxers among the left, these are not a tiny minority of the right, but rather represent not only the majority viewpoint, but are even part of the party platform:
      -global warming denialism
      -evolutionary denialism
      -fracking-causes-earthquakes denialism
      the list goes on

      So no, sorry, but one bad partial example on the left (that is actually shared by the right) does not make the left as bad as the right, nor exonerate the right for its antiscience views.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    37. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by njnnja · · Score: 3, Informative

      The problem with that study is that it focuses on the HPV vaccine, where the conservative based objections revolve around the believe that giving the vaccine is akin to tacit approval of teenage sex (not dissimilar to the conservative objection to safe sex campaigns).

      It is not an anti-science view, in that they believe that the vaccine does, in fact, prevent HPV transmission, and they do not believe in totally debunked theories such as the MMR/autism link. It does not appear that the survey attempted to break out the resistance to, say the MMR vaccine, which is clearly based on junk/psuedo science stoked by the Lancet article, versus Guardacil, where the resistance is based on moral objections.

      I think one of the biggest problems that our modern democracies face is the confusion between science and morality. These are orthogonal bases but more and more they are being conflated into a single dimension where pro-science == moral and anti-science == immoral. There are lots of people who are anti-evolution, anti-climate change, yet perfectly good and decent people, and there are lots of people who are big supporters of all fields of scientific endeavors who are complete a$$holes. And they both have things to say, and in a democracy, get to have a voice in our joint decisionmaking process called politics. To paraphrase Churchill, it sucks but it's better than the alternative.

    38. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Liberal democrats marginalize the woo birds in their camp, even when like RFK Jr. they come from powerful political families.

      Conservatives put their woo birds in charge of the party.

    39. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by BCtoo · · Score: 0

      Tell that to Dice Holdings, Inc. They set the tone here.

    40. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by BCtoo · · Score: 1

      LOL! Let me know when the Democrats have figured out a way to keep Guam from tipping over.
      https://youtu.be/v7XXVLKWd3Q

    41. Re: Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      You may well be right, but realistically, today it's NASA doing this kind of science. If Cruz doesn't want them to do that, then it means that another agency should get the appropriate mandate, and funding currently allocated to NASA for that purpose should be allocated to that other agency instead.

      So, where can I see his proposal on doing that (as opposed to just cutting this from NASA)?

    42. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 2

      You're missing anti-GMO, anti-economic-reality, anti-free-markets, and other lunacy of the left. I'm a libertarian - neither right nor left. From my view up here (yes, take that as condescending) it's pretty obvious that they're two sides of the same coin.

    43. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I completely agree with you, but you're casting pearls before swine on /.

      They're hard-core science cultists and leftists to the extreme. You'll never break through the smugness and self-righteousness.

      The proof? I have to post this as AC in order to not be electronically tarred and feathered then lynched. There is only freedom of speech for the cool kids and the in-crowd... meanwhile they proclaim themselves free thinkers.

    44. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anti-vax is more correlated with money than anything. Funny thing how many of the people I knew to be "less intelligent" yet happened to be birthed into money magically think that money=intelligence. These are the very same individuals who pollute my Facebook newsfeed with "holistic medicine" and "vaccine scares" then of course they promptly ignore my advice even though I am a doctor. Strangely I never see this kind of chauvinistic ignorance among the poor communities I care for, they still trust our(doctors) advice.

    45. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When a hypothesis survives enough of these attempts, scientists will call it a theory, and start to believe it to be true.

      Oh and don't forget the scientific scenario of: "oh we do know better, but within the constraints of our model we will use the slightly dated model we know not to be the full picture, but that will give us good enough results and will make calculations a whole lot easier".

      After all, it's not like the engeneers of even the SR-71 needed to burden themselves with the relativistic corrections of classical mechanic equations ,-)

      But as an aside: for those deniers of anthropogenic climate change that were fortunate enough to do some calculus (yeah, I know...) an easy way to reconcile the size of the athmospheric system with the small size of a single human is integration: A single human won't even register (infinitesimal element), however we are very far away of having a single human muck around with our environment. We are a very sizeable collective of muckers, using machinery of mass muckery, leading to the integration over our population of mucking to yield appreciable results.

    46. Re: Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by houghi · · Score: 1

      Yeahm because we should never change anything after 50+ years no matter the reason or logic or development.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    47. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOLWUT? Okay, I'm not Democrat or Republican, but I lean left on social issues and I lean right on financial issues. Republicans attack based on how they feel about something and Democrats attack based on how they think about something. Republicans always feel that the other side doesn't understand the emotional aspect of something. Foreigners are taking our jobs, we have to protect our country by attacking somewhere else, people should just get a job...etc, it's an emotional argument that makes sense on the surface but doesn't actually have any meat, or often facts to back it up.

      Democrats often have facts on their side but they don't take into account that haven't correct facts doesn't mean that a human problem can be solved with rational facts. If you don't understand X you're stupid, If we got rid of guns no one would be able to shoot anyone, If people would just do this one simple thing it would save the planet...and then completely miss that sometimes solving a symptom doesn't solve the emotional problem.

      Your point that only Democrats do X is false, and you've got to know it is, Republicans claimed under Bush that talking bad about the president was unpatriotic, now look where we are. People tend to react based upon their current emotional state. I'm pretty sure that there's an intelligent and real answer to how you get people to unanimously like renewable energy, dislike climate change, want fair labor laws to protect American workers, securing our borders from enemies foreign and domestic, and for once actually taking care of our veterans and elderly like we promise to. I think that solution only comes from a drastic change to our current political system and our population that values solutions over name calling. In short, we need a compassionate IT person in office. I'll throw my hat in the ring.

    48. Re: Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Bartles · · Score: 1
    49. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Bartles · · Score: 2

      And Organic food lovers. And Vegans, And people that believe in the power of crystals.

    50. Re: Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by itzly · · Score: 1

      Also, using the same/similar instruments on Earth allows the satellite data to be verified by ground measurements.

    51. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Bartles · · Score: 2

      You have that precisely backwards. Their stance on guns is a projection of their feelings, not a rational response to facts. Same with education, or health care, or immigration, or just about any other issue you care to choose.

    52. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some points, you can be in a car accident and be a good driver. It is quite possible to do everything right and still have a bad outcome.

      Something is anti-something when it requires that you expressly disavow any knowledge of it to have your something exist. Saying you're not anti-%someEthnicity% you just don't believe in %someCountry% expressly states that you are pro-the absense of %someCountry%, and thus against the people who currently live there because they are pro-%someCountry%.

      In computer terms you're satisfying all the dependencies and installing the software, but you're naming it something else. Occam's Razor dictates that which fulfills the answer will the fewest assumptions is generally the correct one. Science requires less new assumptions than religion.

      Asking someone to prove a negative, is expressly anti-science as it's impossible to prove a negative. For instance, you cannot prove that Jesus didn't rape and torture millions of people in an epic bloodbath while he wore their skins as a lucha libre mask, but if I were to say that in a Christian church, I'm fairly certain they would label me anti-Christian, because it goes against the teachings of the Christian church.

    53. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by leptons · · Score: 1

      > You'll never break through the smugness and self-righteousness.

      You've just described the right-wing attitude about anything they think is un-american or against christian ideals.

      Trickle down economics is a disaster, banning abortion is a disaster, climate change denial is a disaster, starting un-funded wars is a desaster, lax gun regulation is a disaster - I'm not sure how anyone could promote any of those ideas, you really have to be out of your mind or unwilling to listen to reason when it comes to some of the republican agenda.

      I'm all find with fiscal conservatism, if that is what the republicans actually stood for, but they have proven again and again that they simply are not interested in that.

    54. Re: Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

      Well, hey, why stop there? Didn't US president Barack Obama direct NASA to help reconcile the US with muslim countries?

      Lots of government agencies means lots of helping!

    55. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by hawkfish · · Score: 0

      You're missing anti-GMO, anti-economic-reality, anti-free-markets, and other lunacy of the left.

      You have provided no data on anti-GMO political persuasions, just hearsay, so this claim has as much credibility as claims that "anti-vaxers are libruls". I personally suspect that the anti-GMO crowd tend conservative because there is a strong "purity" angle here that meshes well with prevalent conservative religious views.

      The rest of your "lunacy" list is not supported by data at any scale. Kansas, Europe and the Great Depression all demonstrate that free markets do not magically work without serious amounts of regulation and stimulation, whereas recent results in Minnesota and the US as a whole provide support for Keynesian economics. And please don't reply with a "No True Scotsman" fallacy - I don't accept it from the left for communism and I don't accept them from the right for unregulated markets.

      And yes, libertarians are right wing. Get over it.

      --
      You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
    56. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by iceaxe · · Score: 1

      As a voting member of Cruz's nominal constituency, I reserve the right to criticize him in any way I please, including voting for almost anyone else who will run against him, as well as griping on the internet. In my opinion he is an embarrassment and an idiot, and I want to vomit when I think about the percentage of my neighbors (and relatives) who voted for him.

      We are here discussing his apparent intent to use political power to hinder the gathering of data for science, and that is a serious issue if it is true. Sadly it does not seem out of character for Texas politicians.

      Do note that I have not mentioned any political parties or ideologies here. I am not opposed to Cruz because of his affiliations, but because of his actions and statements. I find political parties in general to be a problem that needs solving, but that's another topic.

      --
      WALSTIB!
    57. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by ganjadude · · Score: 1

      funny how no one ever wants to do that when it comes to other things, things that show states like NY for example are 100% red if you take away NYC and albany

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    58. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      And if you actually do that, you will see that the worst five counties, two are democrat and three are republican. So, it isn't as clear cut as you would think.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    59. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      Yes, it is, because the concentrated stupid doesn't follow political boundaries. Take a look at the two maps next to each other and it is roughly equal the counties that are anti-vax and are democrat vs republican.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    60. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Coren22 · · Score: 2

      Power crystals, herbal treatments, homeopathy; these are pretty solid in the democrat side.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    61. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by bmo · · Score: 1

      Wrong, wrong, wrong. It does not in any way require anyone to ignore evidence,, they can perfectly well accept the evidence as part of a more grand scheme that happens to not be scientific.

      What's the evidence for YEC? Specifically which evidence is there that the "Earth is 10,000 years old"? Give one example that is not a folk tale. To believe that one must actively avoid all the media, courses, books, and basically everything in our culture that supports evolution.

      And BTW, I have to note that back in Darwin's day most naturalists knew that evolution took place, but the debate was over the method by which it happens (whether Lamarck was right or not) and since then, the debate is always over smaller and more precise ways over how it works. YECs look at this debate as if it's a weakness of science and that "well, hurr, they don't actually know anything do they?" Which is an oversimplification and just plain wrong.

      As i already pointed out, the evidence being part of the creation for whatever reason is how that can happen. Its no different that 2(1+1) and 2+2 both equalling 4.

      Both of your math examples are observationally (in this universe) true irrespective of any folk tales. Claiming that each are equal to 4 can be tested. The claim that the Earth is 10,000 years old cannot - because for every challenge there are excuses made by those that support YEC; not any excuses that can be tested, either. There is absolutely bupkis in evidence outside of fairy tales.^1

      Read this: "The Dragon In My Garage." http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LI...

      Science can do nothing about that either because science cannot falsify it.

      But there is a difference between unscientific claims and being anti-science, and the people who obstinately believe that YEC is true are truly anti-science. It's exhibited through their actions - that not only do they not believe that the Earth is OLD but you must also believe it's only 10,000 years old (or ~6000 years old (4004 BCE) depending on which lunatic you're talking to). This includes various arguments of the "dragon in my garage" style as exhibited above and such nonsense as the Dover PA school board idiocy. It's the active opposition that makes them anti- something and not just un- something. That's what the actual dictionary definition of "anti-" means.

      Anyone trying to claim science disproves religion

      What has been done is that evidence has been presented that the Earth is older than 10,000 years notwithstanding evidence to the contrary. It's a fine distinction, but an important one. It's that scientific conclusions are always contingent on whatever evidence there is, not dogma. YECs have to show at least some evidence that the Earth is as young as they say it is for their point to have any standing. And they can't. Because they have no evidence outside of circular "logic" and outright fraud. I mean, come on, the whole Noah's Ark thing in KY and Discovery Institute BS is all about grift and fleecing the marks (the "true believers")

      And what YECs really don't understand is allegory, when you get down to it.

      >I'm simply wrong

      No, I'm not actually. You're just a troll and IHBT. But whatever. An unused blade becomes rusty.

      --
      BMO

      Footnotes:

      1. And yet every Sunday I turn on the television set, and there's a priest or a pastor reading from my book, and interpreting it, and their interpretations, I have to tell you, are usually wrong. It's not their fault, because it's not their book. You never see a rabbi on the TV interpreting the New Testament, /do you?/ If you want to truly understand the Old Testament, if there is something you don't quite get, there are /Jews who walk among you,/ and THEY - I promise you this - will take TIME out of their VERY JEWY, JEWY DAY, and interpret for you anything that

    62. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Sure about that? The only President I know who got advice from an astrologer was Reagan.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    63. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Belief in God is unscientific. There's no objective arguments for or against (there can be objective arguments against certain conceptions of a god).

      Believing in something against the evidence is anti-scientific. It's conceivable that the Universe was created in media res, with all the evidence of something over thirteen billion years of history, at any point in the past. This means that, to understand the Universe, or to function in society, we have to think as if the past actually happened, and the "fact" that the Universe was created last Thursday is irrelevant, even if it means that I never signed those mortgage papers, and they were simply created as part of God's plan.

      There is plenty of evidence that the world is more than a week old, in terms of processes that appear to have continued smoothly. There is none that the Universe was created at any point after the Big Bang. The scientific thing to do is to go with the evidence.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    64. Re: Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd like to add that one of the big reasons to get out into space is to look back at the earth. We already have a pretty good view of space.

    65. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OMG dumass[sic]! You CAN crash your car and still be a good driver. As I repeatedly tell you, your moniker is appropriate, dumass[sic].

    66. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Rednecks, er GOP members, are almost always found out in the country while urban environments tend to be more liberal. You and the AC haven't discovered anything new. Discard the demographics from every city on the planet and I bet the entire globe would be red. And if you discarded all the rural components it would turn pure blue. There is a reason no one seriously attempts arguments based on the method you two propose.

    67. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by ganjadude · · Score: 1

      I was only pointing out that we never see these breakdowns unless they are to show the "rednecks" are the bad ones.

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    68. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 1

      I was only pointing out that we never see these breakdowns unless they are to show the "rednecks" are the bad ones.

      Funny how you were the one who started with "breaking down" to state levels.

      --
      Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
    69. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 1

      nearly all anti-science people are Republicans

      Explain anti vaxxers

      Explain Michele Bachmann then.

      --
      Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
    70. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "here are lots of people who are anti-evolution, anti-climate change, yet perfectly good and decent people,"

      If they were good and decent the would take what science says about the limits of their own brain and its reasoning seriously, (aka the laws that govern our universe) then you are in some sense, an immoral being. AKA anti-reality. It's the same thing as denying gravity, or medicine. Many advancements in medicine COME from understanding evolutionary processes. So to deny the facts (aka reality) would in fact make you an idiot.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ

    71. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      What's the evidence for YEC? Specifically which evidence is there that the "Earth is 10,000 years old"? Give one example that is not a folk tale. To believe that one must actively avoid all the media, courses, books, and basically everything in our culture that supports evolution.

      I do not have to show any evidence. I never said YEC is true or anything of the sort. I said science does not disprove it, cannot disprove it, and you are incorrect in trying to claim it does.

      As i already pointed out, the evidence being part of the creation for whatever reason is how that can happen. Its no different that 2(1+1) and 2+2 both equalling 4.

      And as I pointed out, there can be legitimate dual paths to the same conclusions and there can even be paths that are a subset of another function leading to the same conclusions. Stop pretending there is only one way.

      But there is a difference between unscientific claims and being anti-science, and the people who obstinately believe that YEC is true are truly anti-science. It's exhibited through their actions - that not only do they not believe that the Earth is OLD but you must also believe it's only 10,000 years old (or ~6000 years old (4004 BCE) depending on which lunatic you're talking to). This includes various arguments of the "dragon in my garage" style as exhibited above and such nonsense as the Dover PA school board idiocy. It's the active opposition that makes them anti- something and not just un- something. That's what the actual dictionary definition of "anti-" means.

      Lol.. there is nothing anti scientific about an unscientific argument concerning the perceptions in science. Here your failure is in thinking that information needs to be disregarded or rejected when I have several times now laid out scenarios in which the information is still used for the context it is useful.

      What has been done is that evidence has been presented that the Earth is older than 10,000 years notwithstanding evidence to the contrary. It's a fine distinction, but an important one. It's that scientific conclusions are always contingent on whatever evidence there is, not dogma. YECs have to show at least some evidence that the Earth is as young as they say it is for their point to have any standing. And they can't. Because they have no evidence outside of circular "logic" and outright fraud. I mean, come on, the whole Noah's Ark thing in KY and Discovery Institute BS is all about grift and fleecing the marks (the "true believers")

      Wrong, wrong, wrong. All anyone has to do is posit that the appearance of evidence was the will of the creation. You cannot challenge that scientifically because it is not a scientific statement. Your failure is in demanding arbitrary conditions be present that do not need to be present. You are essentially building staw men to shoot them down because it makes you feel like a killer or something.

      No, I'm not actually. You're just a troll and IHBT. But whatever. An unused blade becomes rusty.

      No, you are simply wrong and going around making incorrect unscientific statements pretending they are scientific in your worship of science. You are a religious zealot in much the same ways the fundamentalists are.

    72. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Belief in God is unscientific. There's no objective arguments for or against (there can be objective arguments against certain conceptions of a god).

      Correct.

      Believing in something against the evidence is anti-scientific.

      incorrect. For instance, the evidence shows that water will flow downhill. Someone believed it would flow uphill if you put pressure behind it. Not we can view evidence of that being true, but at one point, it would be anti scientific and taboo if what you claim is true. Was plumbing a second story or a house on the hill anti-science? See how silly that it?

      It's conceivable that the Universe was created in media res, with all the evidence of something over thirteen billion years of history, at any point in the past. This means that, to understand the Universe, or to function in society, we have to think as if the past actually happened, and the "fact" that the Universe was created last Thursday is irrelevant, even if it means that I never signed those mortgage papers, and they were simply created as part of God's plan.

      Correct. Which is why I posited that a belief in an earth less than 10,000 years old is not anti science because the evidence of it being older could be a result of the creation. The easiest way to explain it might be with someone reproducing and piece of furniture. They can copy the methods to produce the original, they can manipulate the finish, even cause the appearance to be antiqued artificially. They can even do such a good job at it that it fools everyone into thinking it's a 300 year old piece too. But especially in science, the evidence of one thing does not mean another piece of evidence cannot be ture also. For instance, 2(1+1) is the same as 2+2 is the same as 5-1. They all equal 4. If science limited everything else possible and insisted that only 2+2 was valid, 5-1 would be anti scientific by your declaration. Of course we know that not to be true.

      But you are correct in that it is irrelevant in science. Unscientific comments and thought does not matter to science and it is not anti science. You have to hold them and use them every single day. For instance, do you pay for your gas or drive off without paying? That's an unscientific thought because it is based on your ethics. Sure there may be penalties, people may have the highly unscientific reaction and exhibit emotions toward you, you could get away without being caught too. But in the end it is an unscientific dilemma that does not make you anti science.

    73. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      One might. It has certainly been described as the evil works of the devil. But they might also be a bit clueless. The supernatural creator supposedly made man master of everything so it would be likely that the deception is little more of a useful tool in that end. But it is all subject to interpretation I guess.

    74. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Burz · · Score: 1

      I won't say there is nothing irrational about the marketing of organic food. But organic farming does largely achieve its primary goals: Keeping the soil healthy and lowering pesticide exposure.

      As for vegans, they are simply against animal exploitation and cruelty. Its not a scientific issue.

      The way that conservatives attempt to pick at the 'irrationality' of others is instructional here. Its really a defense of large, exploitive industries with monopolistic tendencies. OTOH, the manner in which conservatives escape abusive industries is to form communities like the Amish or Christian Scientists, which IMO are worse than the problem.

    75. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Believing in something against the evidence is anti-science. That water can flow up, when under pressure, is pretty basic hydraulics, and your idea that science might recognize only 2+2 is bizarre.

      So, what do you mean by believing that the world was created earlier today? If you mean belief of the sort that would change your actions or thoughts, it's anti-scientific. If you mean belief that doesn't change your actions or thoughts, it isn't even wrong.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    76. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Believing in something against the evidence is anti-science.

      Against what evidence? Where is the evidence that a creator did not make the world look the way it does leading people to think it is older than it is? It's unscientific but it is not anti science.

      That water can flow up, when under pressure, is pretty basic , and your idea that science might recognize only 2+2 is bizarre

      Only because they are established principles. That was not always the case which you seem to ignore. Basic hydraulics had to start somewhere and some how. Before it was known, under your interpretation, it would have been anti science for the original discoverers to find these principles out.

      So, what do you mean by believing that the world was created earlier today?

      What I mean is if you can only look at natural explanations, you cannot rule out or even examine supernatural explanations. IT does not make it anti, it just makes it not. No amount of wiggle wording will change that.

      If you mean belief of the sort that would change your actions or thoughts, it's anti-scientific.

      Not at all. It's not any more anti science than your insistence that is is anti science. It just is not scientific and no more. No one is working against science simply because of an unscientific belief. And no BTW, the belief in creation or the age of the earth alone does not change a person's actions. The entirety of the cult or religion would shape a person's actions, but no one in their right mind would all the sudden realize the earth was created today and do something specific because of it and only it.

      If you mean belief that doesn't change your actions or thoughts, it isn't even wrong.

      I believe the term you were looking for is "Not Even Wrong". But it is severely lacking because no one ever claimed the argument was scientific. That must be a failing on your part or something because I was specifically saying it is unscientific and science cannot address it because it is unscientific.

      It appears you are trying to hard to keep grasp of some deep belief you hold and are frustrated that no one is buying it. It's ironic because it seems that every time this is brought up, people with those same deep beliefs end up action like the guy who holds on to the earth being created less than 10,000 years ago. Science does not disprove any supernatural claims, all it can do is show they are not needed. Evidence of the earth being old does not prove that it could not have been created with that appearance 10 million years ago, or 10 minutes ago and it does not in any way change the functional relationship of the evidence of age. All science does is gives us a useful path to building information and understanding from natural occurrences and observations. You claiming that anything unscientific is anti science is the essence of not even wrong.

    77. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh my. Using an unscientific plead to suggest science is true and the unscientific view is not.

      Now you are just trolling, sumdumass. You act like there is no truth, and no verifiable facts. There are. The sun appears on the horizon at specific times of day according to location on the planet. The fact that I am saying this to you makes me realize how badly I am falling for your troll. But you seem sincerely confused. To cling to a position like saying the earth is less than 10,000 years old is anti-science in the most fundamental way possible. It's like clinging to the idea that the sun goes around the earth, that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones, etc. If ANY NASA scientist attempted to build a rocket using the idea that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones, the rocket would simply fail. That is not debatable, and that approach would be anti-science. More specifically, if Ted Cruz or anyone else in the government bases their decisions on NASA funding on the idea that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, that is anti-science. Same goes for voters. If you vote for a politician who promises to govern as if the earth is less than 10,000 years old, that is an anti-science action.

      Here is the problem with people who think they know it all but fail to understand what they think they know. First, why would a god create in ways that would make you think otherwise- thats simple, declared man to be the masters of earth and all that is on it. How can you master it if you cannot understand it.

      I feel sorry for you, and your simple answers. Again, I beseech you, wake up.

      As for the rest of your highly unscientific tripe, i do not have to prove or predict anything.

      That's kind of anti-science, isn't it? I didn't seriously ask you to prove anything. I was using a polemic to show you how your original comment was unreasonable. You said:

      In short, nothing in science proves the earth is older than 10,000 year old. In only proves that it could be older and doesn't need the creation explanation. Or in other words, you cannot disprove that a supernatural being supernaturally created things with the appearance of a natural beginning simply for our understanding.

      Here, as I pointed out, you are trying to shift the burden of proof onto scientists to disprove "that a supernatural being supernaturally created things." That is so fundamentally anti-science that you don't even appear to understand your own words. Science is about observing the natural world. To say something is "super" natural is like saying it is "super" scientific. Above science. Over it. If you can't see how people think this is "anti" science, you are simply being unreasonable.

      So thanks for playing and sorry i insulted your religion but you should have stuck with science.

      Obviously, you were not playing the same game I was playing. I like to call my game "reasoned debate". I do not consider my arguments scientific. Instead, I try to make reasonable arguments. Science is there to make predictions about natural observations; it does not give all the answers to all questions. Science does, however, answer the question of the age of the earth, with observations based on natural things repeatably seen on our natural earth (not supernatural events). Based on your "thats simple" comment, reason and observation do not seem to apply in your belief system. My condolences.

    78. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by ganjadude · · Score: 1

      im referring to breaking it down by county. granted I would much prefer we did that instead of only going down to states

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    79. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      No, I'm just wondering why you have this bizarre viewpoint. The evidence that the Sun came up yesterday is stronger than that it will come up tomorrow. If there is no evidence that the Sun came up yesterday, science simply doesn't work. A scientist looks at experiments in his or her field - and suddenly realizes he or she has no evidence that they ever happened.

      There is no evidence for the creation of the Universe. There is evidence that the Universe evolved over time. Therefore, believing in any creation significantly after the big bang is believing against the evidence, and is anti-scientific.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    80. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      No, I'm just wondering why you have this bizarre viewpoint.

      Evidently, you do not understand the viewpoint or for some deep seeded reason cannot allow it to be understood.

      The evidence that the Sun came up yesterday is stronger than that it will come up tomorrow. If there is no evidence that the Sun came up yesterday, science simply doesn't work. A scientist looks at experiments in his or her field - and suddenly realizes he or she has no evidence that they ever happened.

      Here is the problem, science cannot be used to rule out a non scientific argument. All it can do it present an argument that does not need to be unscientific. Mixing yellow and blue together to make green is scientific, some supernatural being willing something to be the color green is not. All science can say is that there is a natural reason why it is green, not that no supernatural being was involved. In short, science does not disprove religion or religious claims, it can only show they are not needed. The idea that the world is less than 10,000 years old is likely wrong, but science does nothing to prove it is wrong, only that it appears much older.

      There is no evidence for the creation of the Universe. There is evidence that the Universe evolved over time. Therefore, believing in any creation significantly after the big bang is believing against the evidence, and is anti-scientific.

      FFS, do you even understand what an unscientific argument is? There are parts of life that have nothing to do with science. That does not make it anti science, it only makes it unscientific. Science is not, I REPEAT- NOT a with us or against us field of study.

      Maybe I should just allow some other people to explain this to you. It's such a simple concept yet I am failing in getting you to understand it. This is geared more to children than adults, maybe you should start from the beginning and go through the entire thing. It seems you have missed a few things throughout the years.

    81. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      A few questions to try to get closer to the heart of this thing:

      1. Is there evidence that Einstein published a paper on Special Relativity in 1905?
      2. Is there evidence that the world was created since then?
      3. What would you do or think differently if you knew that the Universe had actually been created in 1964? If the answers are "yes", "no", and "nothing", is the question even meaningful?

      "Is there a God?" is an unscientific question. It is meaningful, as people will think and do things differently depending on their answer, and the details of their answer. It is not scientific in that it isn't falsifiable, among other things. The same is true, as your link points out, about things like morality and aesthetics. (Questions on people's religion, morality, and aesthetics can be scientific, and it's conceivable that we'll someday have a sciences of aesthetics.) Morality and aesthetics are subject to argument, but the arguments go on both sides (except for some things we're mostly agreed on), and our opinions or conclusions or whatever affect our thoughts and actions.

      In general, in morality and aesthetics we are not asked to believe against the evidence and reasoning, and I consider religions that want people to believe against the evidence to be anti-scientific and bad.

      In your example, either you intend to think or do something on a belief that's against the evidence, or you are asking a meaningless question. The first is anti-scientific, in that such conclusions do not agree with the principles of science, and such habits of thought are destructive to the practice of science. The second is anti-scientific in that it's a waste of time. It's anti-everything to entertain such a view as anything other than an intellectual curiosity.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    82. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article ! by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      In general, in morality and aesthetics we are not asked to believe against the evidence and reasoning, and I consider religions that want people to believe against the evidence to be anti-scientific and bad.

      No one said you have to go against the evidence to believe the world is less than 10,000 years old. I laid out a perfectly easy to understand explanation of how they both could exist- the creation made it look that way. In fact, anything you find in nature would be created to look that way by the creation (or an antagonist like Satan) to anyone who believes in creation. In that environment, the earth and universe appearing to be billions of years old or old would be intentional, the claim it was created that was is just not scientific.

      In your example, either you intend to think or do something on a belief that's against the evidence, or you are asking a meaningless question.

      Here is your problem. you simply are not paying attention to what was said. The evidence can exist, be completely weighed, just valued differently. It can be the product of the creation just as easily as independent of the creation and science does not and never has showed there can be only one way. It only purports to show the scientific or natural way which is devoid of unscientific claims.

      Now I am not asking any questions, I am saying as a statement of fact that science does not address unscientific explanations and unscientific explanations are unscientific not anti science and Unscientific explanations can completely encompass scientific explanations along with it. But it simple is not anti science, it is unscientific.

      The second is anti-scientific in that it's a waste of time. It's anti-everything to entertain such a view as anything other than an intellectual curiosity.

      what a load of manure. Philosophy exists on many different levels and makes many different claims that are not anti science- just not scientific.

      You really do have a problem with this "with us or against us" mentality. Science does not operate that way and the problem is you, not science itself. unscientific does not mean anti science. It never has and never will.

  6. Politics is poisoning every government agency by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't think we can single out NASA. And it's been going on for a while, it's just the ideological agendas change over time.

    At least in the 1950s-1970s, when the Interstate Commerce Commission destroyed the rail system, airlines, and road haulage industries, they were responding to politicians terrified that prices rises would upset their constituents. Now it's politicians terrified that facts might upset their constituents. Different agenda, same stupidity.

    It's almost enough to make you a libertarian. Almost. Enough. But that's substituting one system that barely works for something even more stupid.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    1. Re:Politics is poisoning every government agency by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Way to troll on that last line.

    2. Re:Politics is poisoning every government agency by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here's a Bitcoin kid, go buy yourself a... HAHAHAHA sucker!

  7. Climate is not for NASA... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    At the end of the day, the climate has been changing since inception. You can argue about man made climate change, but the facts are the planet has been far warmer and far colder than it is now.

    That being said, I like federal institutions from getting scope creep. Every government agency simply looks for more ways to get more control and funding. Look at how many agencies have domain over things such as salmon, peanuts, water, air, etc.

    NASA should be studying space. But agendas abound.

    1. Re:Climate is not for NASA... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >At the end of the day, the climate has been changing since inception. You can argue about man made climate change, but the facts are the planet has been far warmer and far colder than it is now.
      You know what, you convinced me, if whatever lived at the time earth was warmer could live, so can we. It's just a few degrees anyway, just remove your coat and that's it.
      And you're right, NASA never ever studied climate, not even a little bit, in fact they actively avoided anything that has to do with climate, I think. That scope creep is insane.

  8. Science by bug_hunter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    To be fair, the EPA doesn't have the direct ability to launch cutting edge climate and atmosphere monitoring satellites. There's a lot of atmosphere science to do, and NASA is in a good position to have the (orbit based) tools and the know how to do that. The EPA is in a good position to review the science and enforce legalisation appropriately.

    --
    It's turtles all the way down.
    1. Re:Science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      To be fair, the EPA can pay NASA to launch/operate satellites.

    2. Re:Science by ganjadude · · Score: 1, Informative

      have NASA launch them of course, but the money for it should come out of the EPA and NOAA (or whatever other ABC wants the sat lifted) and not NASAs pocket

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    3. Re:Science by sumdumass · · Score: 2

      You mean NASA or the Air Force would refuse to launch for them? I mean the US Air Force has been putting weather satellites into orbit for quite a while now and they either do it themselves or have it ride on a NASA mission.

    4. Re:Science by Brulath · · Score: 2

      On the other hand it's quite likely that the technology required to build satellites that can observe Earth is remarkably similar to the technology required to build satellites to observe other planets. There's a huge amount of overlap; why wouldn't you want them to do it on Earth first? It'd be cheaper and faster, for a start, along with providing useful information. What's the downside?

    5. Re:Science by ganjadude · · Score: 3, Insightful

      the point isnt that NASA should not launch these satellites, its that it shouldnt come out of the NASA budget, it should come out of the other federal orgs

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    6. Re:Science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So then the EPA uses part of their budget to have one built, from existing specs, and NASA to launch it.

      Climate change is the new Race Card. Everyone prefaces their comments on AGW with, "I believe, but". It's no different than I have black friends.

      Fuck that. Every fucking article you read, some moron reporter finds a way to slip in Climate Change.

      The Japanese birth rate is too low, Climate Change!

      Fucking morons.

    7. Re:Science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's just stupid. Have you ever even looked at the way the budget for the federal government is structured? If you want a climate rocket launched, you don't put the money in EPA's budget, and have them write a check to NASA. And how would that be an improvement over just allocating the rocket budget to NASA?

    8. Re:Science by itzly · · Score: 2

      The net effect of that change would be exactly zero, paper shuffling excluded.

    9. Re:Science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      to be fair, it's JPL that does the satellites... ...and besides, why bother launching satellites, anyway? You guys just ignore the data. The reason we know there hasn't been any warming in 18 years is precisely because of the satellites. Lotta good that did anyone, right?

    10. Re:Science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not to mention that the more we learn about our own planet from space, the more knowledge we have to look for specific traits in other planets.

    11. Re:Science by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 1

      To be fair, the EPA can pay NASA to launch/operate satellites.

      They'd be smarter to pay SpaceX to do it. SpaceX launches are a lot cheaper than NASA's....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    12. Re:Science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And NASA will pay the ULA.

    13. Re:Science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except for the cost of managing the exchange of money between the agencies. You'd actually end up spending more probably instead of giving it direct to NASA.

    14. Re:Science by coinreturn · · Score: 1

      On the other hand it's quite likely that the technology required to build satellites that can observe Earth is remarkably similar to the technology required to build satellites to observe other planets. There's a huge amount of overlap; why wouldn't you want them to do it on Earth first? It'd be cheaper and faster, for a start, along with providing useful information. What's the downside?

      The downside is that the shitload of evidence showing climate change is real would grow. That is a downside to Cruz and his minions.

    15. Re:Science by itzly · · Score: 1

      But there's a lot more to it than just launching the satellites. They also have to be designed and manufactured, operated, and then the results need to be analysed. Currently NASA has the expertise to do/oversee all of that, EPA does not, and SpaceX doesn't either.

    16. Re:Science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The effect is a lot more significant when you consider the political ramifications. If you restrict earth sciences to the EPA, a department that many Americans loath (presumably due to their vilification in Ghostbusters), it becomes much easier to slow, silence, or dismiss inconvenient science with ad-hominems and lefty-scare tactics. It's a perfectly compartmentalized political football. If it's NASA, a department most Americans respect (fake-moon-landing theorists, aside), it's much harder to declare it a hoax. The messenger is as important as the message.

    17. Re:Science by iceaxe · · Score: 1

      NASA, EPA, NOAA, Air Force, name your federal agency, there's only one pocket - mine. I don't much care how they juggle the books, but I want them using my money to do useful stuff like studying the climate, not killing people and blowing stuff up so somebody else can make more money.

      --
      WALSTIB!
  9. NOAA by PPH · · Score: 1, Insightful

    telling NASA they should turn a blind eye to the environment of our own planet is insanity.

    Why? That's what NOAA is supposed to be doing. If I were elected philosopher-king of NASA, I'd be more then happy to tell the climatologists to take their politics next door. We'll be more then happy to put a satellite up for you. But that's about the extent of it.

    And then there's the USGS. And a bunch of other agencies all poking and prodding the planet. It's really starting to look like everyone is having their funding held up pending the publication of a pro-AGW study. And that's a part of what makes the associated politics stink like hell.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:NOAA by rwa2 · · Score: 2

      Yep, this. NOAA is supposed to operate all of the earth-observing weather satellites.

      My FIL works for climate.gsfc.nasa.gov , and was the PM for the NASA instruments for the recent DSCOVR satellite. My understanding is that it was full of irony... of the major instruments, NASA was responsible for the earth-facing ones - NISTAR (measuring radiation reflected from the Earth) and EPIC (Al Gore's original Earth webcam-in-space concept from back when it was called Triana), and NOAA provided the PlasMag instrument that measures --- the solar wind from the Sun. But the rest of the project makes sense... NASA integrated the payload, the Air Force paid for the launch, NASA is guiding the satellite to the L1 point, and then handing it over to NOAA for operations once it's in place. I don't see that kind of arrangement going away, since a lot of the satellite and sensor expertise lies with NASA, and NOAA is mostly a big data warehouse.

      I'm actually kinda laughing on the inside, since NOAA is a MUCH larger proponent of environmentalism than NASA. Stewardship of the oceans and atmosphere is actually written into NOAA's mission, and they're also responsible for most of climate weather data collection and analysis that has been supporting the AGW narrative. NASA is much more objective... my FIL is a Russian mathematician who doesn't really give a rat's ass about the environment or smoking or littering, but if you make a mistake interpreting LIDAR radiative dissipation measurement he'll rip you a new one. A lot of his work for climate.gsfc.nasa.gov has actually been measuring all of the ways AGW has not been occurring, by gathering data to improve models of cloud and aerosol reflectivity, things that help explain how Earth maintains its energy balance and could really raise the ceiling on the projected budget for CO2 emissions.

      But if the conservatives want to take responsibility for objectively looking at the Earth away from NASA and giving more responsibility to NOAA, we can all look forwards to a lot more intensive environmental studies supporting NOAA's charter to be good stewards of the oceans and skies.

    2. Re:NOAA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Indeed. Having all these agencies study the Earth might give the mistaken impression that it has some kind of special importance to us.

    3. Re:NOAA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NASA mission is to discover space? That's news to me! (this is total BS)
      I thought NASA's primary goal was to expand long range missile technology for the military.
      Their second goal I thought was for handing out pork money to various states as buyoffs to congressmen for useless projects.

      Exhibit A: "NASA’s $349 million monument to its drift, Construction of a test tower in Miss. continued long after the rocket project was scrubbed":
      See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2014/12/15/nasas-349-million-monument-to-its-drift/
      If NASA didn't do things like waste $349 million dollars on a project that they know they will never use, maybe they'll have more money to waste... errr, I mean "spend" else where. Yes, a republican was behind this project. The massive waste of resources from the US Government is due to corruption from both the Republicans and Democrats. Now a days, they both only care about protecting large companies profits, which in turn they funnel money back to both parties for their "help".

      As an example of people believing in the lies their government tells them:
      I hear sometimes that TOR wasn't created for spies, but for helping people in less fortunate countries. (total BS)
      TOR Made for USG Open Source Spying Says Maker
      See: http://cryptome.org/0003/tor-spy.htm

      The list of BS that people believe goes on.
      The rule that the more people repeat a lie, the more that lie will become true and people will actually believe it is true.
      Think of how people use to think the world was flat, "everyone knows the world is flat" was the argument.
      Just like, "everyone knows NASA is really Star Trek".

  10. Can you please give us a fucking break?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ... nearly all anti-science people are Republicans

    Not only what you have said is baseless, it's utterly bullshit, and you can't even begin to proof what you said!

    One thing that is very wrong with the Democrats is that they think that everybody else who do not agree with them are idiots --- while some Republicans occasionally do the same thing, --- the way Democrats are portraying themselves --- from Hillary down to that motherfucker that uttered the above quote --- as though they have all the answers and their answers can not be challeged

    1. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
      No, wrong.

      the way Democrats are portraying themselves --- from Hillary down to that motherfucker that uttered the above quote --- as though they have all the answers and their answers can not be challeged

      The nature of science is not to have all the answers, but to *look for* answers. The best science starts off with the attitude of Socrates: "I don't know". The precise problem with Ted Cruz, and other anti-science politicians like him, is that he knows the answer, and doesn't want scientists looking for it. If he really believed climate change was not real, he would want to INCREASE NASA's budget, to find out the truth. The most despicable thing, transparent in his actions, is that he KNOWS the truth, he is baldly LYING about it, and he cares more about his personal glorification than he cares about the future of the country.

    2. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and you can't even begin to proof what you said!

      This isn't Math class, and as such this statement should not have received any 'Insightful' rating.

      There is nothing in the parent's statement at all which claims or even implies he has affiliations with either Party. And if you think intellectual arrogance weighs heavier in either Party, then you're a fool.

      they have all the answers and their answers can not be challeged

      This is the hallmark of anyone who is a 'hard-liner' in any political party, anywhere.

    3. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by Megane · · Score: 1

      If he really believed climate change was not real, he would want to INCREASE NASA's budget

      Except for the minor detail that it's the House that does the budgetary stuff.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    4. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If he really believed climate change was not real, he would want to INCREASE NASA's budget, to find out the truth.

      I believe climate change is real and I want to increase NASA's budget.
      I also believe that NASA is a space agency and that climatology is something that they shouldn't dabble in. When money goes to NASA I expect them to use it for space research, not climate research. If I wanted more climate research to be done NASA would not be on my list of organizations to push money towards.

    5. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by itzly · · Score: 2

      Doesn't mean he can't argue to have NASA's budget increased, just like he's arguing now to have it decreased.

    6. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by geoskd · · Score: 1

      You have just described nearly every politician of consequence. The problem is not that the politicians will lie about anything and everything to get elected, The problem is that the electorate practically demands that their leaders have a bunch of qualities that are contrary to good leadership and good science (Such as always knowing what to do, overwhelming confidence, ability to make snap decisions). These are absolutely opposite of what a good leader should have, and yet, these are the criteria that the average person uses to select their leaders. The simple reality of the matter is that the general population has no business selecting a leader. By allowing them to do so, we endanger our own future. Its the same reason we don't let just anybody fly an airplane. Almost no-one could do it safely without lots of training, but that wouldn't stop every Joe Sixpack from trying it if they could.

      --
      I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
    7. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who should make the choice for us?

    8. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      ... than he cares about the future of the country.

      Country? What country? Pardon my French, but fuck your country.
      If you allow an anti-science and anti-literacy propagandist to become the head of your biggest scientific institution, you are NOT playing with just YOUR country's future. Even the - no doubt unintentional - arrogance of assuming your dangerously out-of-control politicians are only your problem is infuriating by this point.

      Have you noticed that in the space of about 5 years, your country has managed to do so much damage to global scientific discourse that from browsing the English-language Internet, it looks as if Climate Change was a matter of personal opinion now? And while the push for denial is clearly purposeful and politically-motivated, people are more keen to believe that scientists, not politicians, are deceiving them than ever before. Even worse, as the topic has been put through America's insanely effective nationwide Attitude Dispersion System (your media and the soundbite army) every self-righteous dummie has now been fully equipped with the confidence that he or she can personally decide on the physical realities of climate change.

      It only takes a vocal minority to grow past a certain percentage of the population before *nobody* thinks of it as an actually measurable phenomenon anymore. If you realize that AGW is right in the middle of several of our psychological blind-spots in the first place (long-term/not my problem, slow changes/easy to deny, global/nothing I can do about it; pollution is profitable, consequences are invisible and in the future), you will realize how much serious damage you are actually causing by letting this go on. We are very much susceptible to falling into a fatal hole of collective judgement here. One that takes years to dig, but decades to fill back in. It's easy to believe everything is fine when everybody around you believes it. Changing that without waiting for the apocalypse to arrive is very hard.

    9. Re: Can you please give us a fucking break?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The VAST majority of economic payback of NASA is from their study of EARTH from space. They help identify areas for minerals and oil, they help monitor the weather patterns for agriculture. Most of their resources are spent monitoring the Earth (and servicing all the other departments that use satellites) to tell us how to make it better for people.

    10. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by BCtoo · · Score: 0

      Ted Cruz doesn't think climate change is a problem that should be solved politically. It is a problem that can only solve itself. Americans already live in one of the cleanest countries on Earth. But none of our politics or laws affect China, India or Brazil, the places where the bulk of carbon emissions are coming from and will come from in the foreseeable future.

    11. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And yet, there is a reason why in the most successful countries the general population elects their leaders, and those leaders then make place for the new leaders, when they cease to be elected.

      The method you allude to has been tried many times and has in the end been rejected by the currently most successful nations.

    12. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

      It's the government's job to find the truth?

      Are you going to trust an organization to fairly handle an issue when they charge based on political affiliation?

      If people in the US don't believe in something (and, in this case, they don't), it isn't the job of the government to convince them otherwise. I'm not even talking about the (more important) group of people who vote.

    13. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by jc42 · · Score: 2

      If he really believed climate change was not real, he would want to INCREASE NASA's budget, to find out the truth.

      ... When money goes to NASA I expect them to use it for space research, not climate research. If I wanted more climate research to be done NASA would not be on my list of organizations to push money towards.

      A number of people have voiced that idea here an elsewhere, but it's a bit of an odd argument. Saying that climate research should only be done on Earth is a case of basing all your science on a single case study. But if we really want to understand climate, we should be studying all the atmospheres that are available to us, not just this one planet's atmosphere. And historically, NASA has been a major launcher of space probes, especially those aimed at other planets.

      We even have an excellent near-twin of our planet close at hand: Venus is very nearly the same size at Earth, but has a climate that would be instantly fatal to nearly every living thing on Earth. Now, obviously Venus's temperature is partly due to being closer to the sun, but simple physical calculations show that the equilibrium temperatures of Venus and Earth should be much more similar than they are. So most of the different has to be for reasons other than solar input and radiative loss. We understand some of this, but not everything, and somehow I don't think we'll fully understand Venus's climate by restricting our climate research to just our own planet.

      It's also interesting that Mars has a climate that is more similar to Earth's than Venus's, though it has the additional difference of lower gravity, resulting in much less atmosphere. Again, NASA has been directly involved in nearly everything we've learned about the Martian climate until fairly recently.

      Anyway, I for one would encourage NASA to continue to be involved in climate studies, not just here on Earth, but on all the available worlds that have climates. Basing our behavior on a "sample of one" isn't a very intelligent approach. If we really want to understand how climates work, we should be collecting data from all of the available atmospheres. We really don't want our climate to shift in the direction of Venus or Mars, after all, and the best way to prevent that is to learn why they're the way they are and why ours is different. Historically, NASA has been a major player in what we have learned about the subject.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    14. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      The constitution actually stated that all land owners would have the vote. Not just anyone. The main benefit of this is that they have more "skin in the game". Another benefit is that often they are more highly educated, so have a better basis for making a decision. When slavery was abolished, and shortly after that with women's suffrage, it was decided that everybody (besides a few groups for good reason) should be able to vote. So now we have the popularity contest over who can vote themselves the most money from the public coffers. In other words, what you are asking for is Republican only rule, as no one who owns land would vote for a Democrat. :)

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    15. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      I invented some magical fairy dust that will absorb all CO2 is comes in contact with. I would like to offer this product for $100 a pound to everyone. ...hey, it could happen...

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    16. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by PhloppyPhallus · · Score: 1

      This isn't really true; the Constitution was originally silent on the matter of who could or could not vote, leaving it up to the legislatures of each state to determine the specifics of elections. Moreover, only the House of Representatives require direct election by "the People"--State Legislatures could choose Senators and even Presidential Electors as they saw fit. Voting rights in the US were very much non-uniform; while most states initially limited the franchise to white property owning males, New Jersey allowed property-holding women to vote from the start, some others jurisdictions allowed non-whites to vote, and of those a handful allowed freed slaves to vote. It wasn't until after the Civil War that uniform standards started to come into place. And we can all be thankful for that--how could one possibly believe the country was better governed when women, blacks, natives, and more were denied a voice? Your enlightened government of the past allowed one man to own another, said women were no better than slaves to their husbands and fathers, and coldly committed genocide against natives who had the temerity to live on land white property owners had their eyes on.

      The US prior to the civil war had great ideals, but fell woefully short of them in practice as the white property-holding class ignored the rights of others whenever they stood in their way of their economic interests. Everyone wants something for nothing--I'd rather not go back to the time when only a few got it, at the expense of everyone else.

    17. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I should. Now move along.

    18. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by k6mfw · · Score: 1

      ... nearly all anti-science people are Republicans

      Not only what you have said is baseless, it's utterly

      it seems to me anyone that is member of Republican party has to be anti-climate research. Two examples that stand out are a PBS documentary about congress debating climate research is one longtime congressman that was voted out of office, he is a Republican but voted on a bill to fund a program relating to climate research. Another I was talking about a presentation by Neil DeGrasse Tyson I attended, a friend that shares same interests in space and technology as I do commented "ugh, I'd run out of that theatre as fast as I can." Apparently since NDT promotes climate research but my friend being a Republican has to oppose NDT because conflict with "party requirements." Yes, it's all political but geez you guys. At least collect data and do analysis. You may not like the results. We don't argue about whether E=mc^2 is correct or not.

      --
      mfwright@batnet.com
    19. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's not right. The constitution specifies that all *revenue* bills originate in the House. http://www.usconstitution.net/... However, that doesn't stop the President from proposing a budget including revenue legislation before the House starts working on it. And it also doesn't stop the Senate from amending the house bill, and for a conference committee between the House and Senate from resolving differences between the bills. So if Ted Cruz wanted to introduce an amendment to the appropriations bill for NASA, he could do so, providing that some parliamentary rule/vote didn't stop him.

    20. Re:Can you please give us a fucking break?? by BCtoo · · Score: 0

      I invented some magical fairy dust that will absorb all CO2 is comes in contact with. I would like to offer this product for $100 a pound to everyone. ...hey, it could happen...

      But you want to make development of that fairy dust a legal requirement?!
      Really?

  11. Hey Phil Plait by borknado · · Score: 1

    Good article bro.

  12. man-made climate change is a hoax by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just another scheme to line the rich man's (Al Gore, etc) pockets.

  13. Not just NASA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Its not just NASA. Every last bit of science in the US that is funded by government is being poisoned by politics. Somewhere, politicians got the idea that they know a lot because they managed to get elected. They are no different than business executives, except that business executives are slightly more willing to listen because if the scientists leave because the boss is a moron, then progress begins to tank. If meddling in what they don't understand goes sideways and the company loses money, its far more likely the board will fire their sorry ass. Politicians don't have to worry about that till election time, and the public has a notoriously short memory. Companies don't want to be responsible for their fuck-ups. They don't want to be responsible for harm to employees. They don't want to be responsible for harm to the environment. They want to screw the government on taxes. They will stop at nothing to 'get their edge' and skew the market in their favour. Scientists are at a disadvantage: they are compelled to tell the truth, and they will get called on it in very short order if they don't. Politicians, lawyers and CXO's are *never* held to that kind of accountability.

  14. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  15. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  16. This is nothing new by Enry · · Score: 1

    Take a look at where NASA operates and why. Research divisions everywhere. Rocket design in Huntsville, launch from Florida, but mission control is in Houston. Why? Because politicians can get jobs and dollars in their districts. What Cruz is really saying is "spend more money in my state and not in anyone else's".

  17. Ted Cruz on rocket science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am worried about Ted Cruz's understanding of ROCKET science. Bill Nelson is probably as knowledgeable of a NASA senator to realistically expect. Bill Nelson actually pays attention to the major NASA accomplishments. It was Bill Nelson and Kay Bailey Hutchison, that forced the NASA Administrator to announce the SLS rocket. Ted Cruz is running for president. I don't want criticism of Ted Cruz regarding NASA to be dominated by the partisan global warming issue.

  18. Last time I checked.... by argStyopa · · Score: 0

    Now that a Republican is in charge, it's "politics" ruining Nasa? Really?

    NASA chief Charles Bolden:
    "When I became the NASA administrator, (President Obama) charged me with three things: One, he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math and engineering."

    I'm going to go on record as saying that Nasa has been pretty much fucked by politics since, well, forever.

    --
    -Styopa
    1. Re: Last time I checked.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Non-consequential PR fluff. If you want to complain about something, complain about him being poorly prepped for the interview and expressing himself poorly.

      Never made any impact in actual policy or practice.

      Almost a pity. Could you imagine what we could do if we launched the pyramids into space?

  19. NASA being a government agency is hindering it! by splashd · · Score: 0

    The sheer burden of being under the weight of being a governmental entity, more than politics (or perhaps due to its influence on government), is killing NASA's ability. There is no natural check and balance for efficiency (like the economic darwinism of profit), so artificial bureaucratic mechanisms balloon to the point that efforts that further real goals are diluted to a small percentage of the cost expended. When NASA contracts for computers, vehicles, fuels...whatever, it is not a credit card on Amazon, it is literally years, in many cases, from "I want that" to "I got that". And not Apollo years like "let's advance science and design technology that didn't exist", but "let's make sure nothing bad happens and avoid any blame"...bla bla bla. Nothing can get done, because the impetus of governmemnt agencies is not to accomplish stuff, but to follow process, and define more process, all while reducing risk. The perfect risk mitigation is to do nothing.

    NASA could do more with less if they merely accepted a 98% success rate, but the political pressure to strive for 100% drags out any time (and cost) to execute by orders of magnitude. Failure should always be an option in science, but it is not politically, so NASA does nothing--or at least, not much.

    --
    technical whipping boy, Occam's Strop (think about it...)
  20. NASA's Mission by mdsolar · · Score: 1

    "Drive advances in science, technology, aeronautics, and space exploration to enhance knowledge, education, innovation, economic vitality, and stewardship of Earth." http://www.nasa.gov/sites/defa...

    1. Re: NASA's Mission by kenh · · Score: 1
      --
      Ken
  21. Politics? I thought their main purposes were by kenh · · Score: 1, Troll

    A few days ago, in Cairo, Bolden told Al Jazeera that when he became the NASA administrator, President Obama charged him with three things: "One, he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and engineering â" science, math and engineering."

    Source

    It's a shame that politics is interfering with NASA's primary objectives from President Obama...

    --
    Ken
    1. Re:Politics? I thought their main purposes were by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Inspiring? Oh my! It's an inspiracy!

  22. NASA got MORE budget than they asked for. by SuperKendall · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Left out is the fact that NASA, under Cruz, got MORE budget than they had asked for. Yes he wants them to spend less time and effort on climatology, but it is a space agency after all, we already have NOAA... shouldn't it be NOAA doing that research? It LITERALLY has "atmospheric" in the name after all.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:NASA got MORE budget than they asked for. by radarskiy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Have you tried reading National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, which spells out the firs eight objectives of NASA? The first is "The expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space".

    2. Re:NASA got MORE budget than they asked for. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can I play that game as well?

      NASA has aeronautics in its name. Aeronautics is the science of air-flight. Earth has air, climate change affects the air, therefore NASA is right to have a role in recording and monitoring climate change.
      NASA has space in its name. The Earth is in space, therefore NASA has the right to observe what happens on Earth, including the atmosphere. If NASA cant learn how planetary atmospheres work on their home planet, how the hell can they effectively make a model of a distant planet or moons atmosphere?

      Sophistry is fun. Care for round 2?

    3. Re:NASA got MORE budget than they asked for. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NASA could still launch and support Earth-oriented equipment, but other organizations could be the ones doing the Earth-focused science. Looking at the Earth's surface is not "phenomena in the atmosphere".

      NASA used to be outward-focused, until they switched to an Earth focus several decades ago.

    4. Re:NASA got MORE budget than they asked for. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then the charter is an ass.
      A better charter would be ..
      To seek out new life and new civilizations...to boldly go where no one has gone before.

      Seriously. Funding for the environmental studies is pushing funding for other science aside. My brother once asked - somewhat sarcastically - how he could tie his research proposal to global warming studies just so he could get it funded. There is PLENTY of money for earth science already.

      So lets take the NA out of NASA - so we can get to space.

  23. Cruz from Canada by mdsolar · · Score: 3, Informative

    Cruz is originally from Alberta so his interest in tar sands and polluting the world is pretty natural to him.

    1. Re:Cruz from Canada by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      Oh yah? Where's his real birth certificate?!

    2. Re:Cruz from Canada by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It doesn't matter. He isn't/wasn't a Muslim so no one cares. Oh and he's white.

  24. The atmosphere is not Phenomena by SuperKendall · · Score: 1, Informative

    The opening of that very Act:

    To provide for research into problems of flight within and outside the earth's atmosphere, and for other purposes.

    The organization is supposed to be primarily about flight, to the extent they study the atmosphere it is in relation as to the effect of flight on vehicles...

    Climate change and studying the relations of the entire atmosphere is not "phenomena" (like auroras). It is not extra-ordinary; it is ordinary.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:The atmosphere is not Phenomena by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      and other purposes

      and other purposes

      AND OTHER PURPOSES

      Now, lets see what's the very first objective of NASA:

      (c) The aeronautical and space activities of the United States shall be conducted so as to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives:

      (1) The expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space;

      Earth observation is part of NASA's objectives. Since climate change is something big currently happening in our planet it's only normal that NASA is monitoring climate, at least to some extent. And they do, of course they do. Science is not as compartmentalized as you think it is, fields overlap and look at the same phenomenons from different perspectives. The brain is studied by at least half a dozen different scientific fields (medicine, biology, psychology, neurology...), the same happens with climate. The most important thing is that they are not duplicating their efforts.

    2. Re:The atmosphere is not Phenomena by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In scientific contexts a phenomenon does not have to be extraordinary. Rain is a natural phenomenon.
      Phenomenon = "a fact, occurrence, or circumstance observed or observable"

    3. Re:The atmosphere is not Phenomena by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And a bit more of the Act:

      (c) The aeronautical and space activities of the United States shall be conducted so as to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives:

      (1) The expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space;

      (2) The improvement of the usefulness, performance, speed, safety, and efficiency of aeronautical and space

      vehicles;

      (3) The development and operation of vehicles capable of carrying instruments, equipment, supplies and living organisms through space;

      (4) The establishment of long-range studies of the potential benefits to be gained from, the opportunities for, and the problems involved in the utilization of aeronautical and space activities for peaceful and scientific purposes.

      (5) The preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology and in the application thereof to the conduct of peaceful activities within and outside the atmosphere.

      (6) The making available to agencies directly concerned with national defenses of discoveries that have military value or significance, and the furnishing by such agencies, to the civilian agency established to direct and control nonmilitary aeronautical and space activities, of information as to discoveries which have value or significance to that agency;

      (7) Cooperation by the United States with other nations and groups of nations in work done pursuant to this Act and in the peaceful application of the results, thereof; and

      (8) The most effective utilization of the scientific and engineering resources of the United States, with close cooperation among all interested agencies of the United States in order to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort, facilities, and equipment.

      I mean, fuck, Congress is wordy and loquacious as can be, but you can at least TRY to read your own resource.

      I swear, some people would have the post office shut down their passport services just because it's not delivering the mail.

  25. take the politics out of it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Perhaps if the left stopped politicizing the climate, more people would listen. Not to mention all the environmental types that are out to profit off climate hysteria. I'm all for leaving a smaller environmental footprint and finding better ways to power our civilization. What I'm against is drastic measures that will kill our economy, schemes like carbon credits that just enrich people while making no real difference, and the "clean energy" bandwagon of the day that in a year or two proves to be a bad idea.

    If people would just slow down, take politics out of it and take a pragmatic approach to making better things, we would all be much better off. Take off the political blinders, learn to tell the true wackos (on both sides) to shut up, and let real science and engineering prevail (without chastising scientists that may not believe the same things you do).

    Are we convinced yet that the bio diesel scam was a bad idea? Turning our limited agriculture resources (and water supplies for said crops) in to fuel? How about pushing for non-reliable energy sources that actually caused more pollution by forcing fossil fueled generators to run at less than peak efficiency to be able to handle non-predictable generation? We need better sources of electricity. Regardless of whether or not we're causing global warming, puffing a bunch of smoke in to the atmosphere cannot be a great thing.

    As soon as you make it part of a political platform, the other side will immediately stop listening. Let's find feasible solutions that everyone can get behind without needing an agenda.

    1. Re: take the politics out of it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps if the right stopped politicizing the climate, more people would listen. Not to mention all the corporate types that are out to profit off ignoring environmental impact.

      Everything you complained about, is if anything, more applicable to the right.

      As soon as you make it part of a political platform, the other side will immediately stop listening. Let's find feasible solutions that everyone can get behind without needing an agenda.

      So one side stops listening, and you're blaming the side that is willing to deal with a problem you already acknowledge is real for making it a priority?

      Is your reasoning not a little flawed?

    2. Re:take the politics out of it by whistlingtony · · Score: 1

      What feasible solutions would YOU suggest? I'm really curious..... Let's take the politics out of it... What !@#$ing feasible solutions would be good enough for you? Climate Change is real, and we need to do something about it, so what would you do that would actually fix the problem? Please, do enlighten us....

  26. It's Not Political Bullshit by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

    Horseshit. Also irrelevant, if they're not climate scientists. This is a claim that makes sense only if you have no understanding of the underlying science. It's impossible for rising CO2 levels not to warm the planet, feedbacks aside, and the H2O feedback (the most important one) is almost certainly strongly positive. There is a little bit of wiggle room, but given that H2O is a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2 and that there are huge reservoirs of it over 70% of the Earth's surface, and that air can hold exponentially more water as it warms, you have to invent an insanely strong negative feedback effect to counteract it if you want to disprove climate change. There is no such effect.

    Your appeal to authority is wonderful but what you actually need are facts. Please try again.

    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    1. Re:It's Not Political Bullshit by cbeaudry · · Score: 1

      You've just explained the negative feedback. Water vapour, moisture, means more water in the air, means more cloud formations.
      More cloud cover means more reflection of incoming rays before they even reach the lower atmosphere to warm it.

    2. Re:It's Not Political Bullshit by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

      First, in order for this to counteract the positive feedbacks cloud cover would need to increase in proportion to CO2: this is not observed. Also, incoming rays don't warm the Earth much, as the atmosphere is transparent in the visible spectrum. On the other hand, it's more or less completely opaque in the IR, so the negative forcing effect of cloud cover would have to be extremely powerful to negate the effects of the entire atmosphere. It is a plausible counter argument, but my understanding is that the science is against it, and beyond that I can only refer you to the literature on the subject.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
  27. You're a nutcase. Go away. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 0

    Furthermore, Jane should explain why he emphatically rejected the standard physics definition of the term "net".

    There really appears to be something wrong with you. There are records of ALL our conversations about that. I did no such thing, and I could prove it AGAIN, if I cared to, but I have no reason to re-hash here old arguments you LOST a long time ago. As I told you before, sooner or later I will get around to publishing it all. But you aren't going to hurry me up by pulling this kind of crap.

    As you have repeatedly shown to be your standard practice, you have taken yet another of my comments out of context, and are attempting to make it seem I was stating something that in fact I was not.

    That's called LYING. And harassment.

    I'm tempted to think you're crazy, but my honest opinion is that you're just a pathological ass.

  28. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 0

    The only thing I am going to say further, despite what other BS you try to pull here, is that I was saying "NO!" to your line of argument. I was not disagreeing about what "net" is.

    It's a classic case of "out of context". Which I am sure you well knew. Which makes you a demonstrably dishonest person.

  29. Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 0

    Furthermore, Jane should explain why he emphatically rejected the standard physics definition of the term "net".

    There really appears to be something wrong with you. There are records of ALL our conversations about that. I did no such thing, and I could prove it AGAIN, if I cared to, but I have no reason to re-hash here old arguments you LOST a long time ago. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-16]

    There are records of all our conversations about that here: Here are links to this never ending “conversation” 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. BACKUP 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18.

    As everyone can see, Jane ended his hundreds of pages of Sky Dragon Slayer claims by unilaterally and baselessly declaring victory, and

  30. Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 0

    The only thing I am going to say further, despite what other BS you try to pull here, is that I was saying "NO!" to your line of argument. I was not disagreeing about what "net" is. It's a classic case of "out of context". Which I am sure you well knew. Which makes you a demonstrably dishonest person. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-16]

    Jane, my "line of argument" was very simple. If you weren't disagreeing about the definition of the word "net" then why did you scream "NO!!!!!" in response to my comment?

    If power in = power out (your own stipulation), and the only NET power INTO a defined spherical region is electrical, and the only NET power OUT of that region is radiative, then net radiative power out at steady-state must therefore be equal to the net electrical power consumed. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-12-14]

    Jane seems to be saying that at steady-state:

    net electrical power consumed = net radiative power out

    But net radiative power out of a boundary around the source = "radiative power out" minus "radiative power in", so the equation Jane just described also says:

    net electrical power consumed = "radiative power out" minus "radiative power in"

    However, this new equation doesn't match Jane's earlier equation:

    My energy conservation equation is this: electrical power in = (epsilon * sigma) * T^4 * area = radiant power out [Jane Q. Public, 2014-10-08]

    Notice that Jane's earlier equation doesn't describe net radiative power out, which is why it violates conservation of energy. Is Jane retracting his earlier incorrect equation, or does Jane dispute the definition of the word "net"?

  31. Nothing new here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NASA was ALWAYS about politics. It was created to win the space-race with the USSR. Any science done in the process was always secondary.

  32. A Few Issues by FordenFreeman · · Score: 1

    First, you cannot tell me that NASA shouldn't study the Earth. The Earth is part of the cosmos, ignoring it does no one any good. Second, while I am an anarchist, I have to agree with the POTUS on this one... it's time for NASA to step aside and start getting private industry into space. This is happening to some degree already, but allowing the market to control development and having NASA along for the ride is far more economical and the pace of change is faster. When the government signs contracts, those contracts are very long term and usually benefit someone in office financially. This is bad for a group that aims to be scientific in nature. Having outside companies directly court NASA on short term contract bases just seems a far better way to do things. Third, NASA is one of the only organizations on Earth with a very good ability to analyze Earth and compare their findings to those of studies done on the atmospheres/climates of other planets. To do a good study, you need things like controls, comparisons, and experiments. Those are hard to do with systems as large and complex as planetary climates. I would argue that the study of Earth and other planets is really the only way to get an accurate understanding of climate change and the Earth's climate more generally.

  33. Incorrect by aepervius · · Score: 1

    "In short, nothing in science proves the earth is older than 10,000 year old". Only if you posit miracle or posit fundemmental principle of physic are wrong/changed. Firstly proof is for math. In science we speak of evidence. For example Car start is seen at point A , car is seen at point B. both point at 60 mph. Accelerometer on board show zero deceleration and zero acceleration. What speed was the car between point A and B ? If you answer 60 mph, congratulation you used science and you showed earth billion year old. Why is that ? Well see, we have this things called radioactive elements, like uranium , thorium, etc.... And for those the isotopes decay at a certain statistical rate. And thus by seeing the quantity of such element left, the quantity of daughter element, we can estim ate how long it was there. The only way out of that conundrum is : 1) posit miracle 2) state that physic changed in the mean time 3) a cosmic joke by all gods human worshipped making a new earth looking like an old one. It is quite clear for anybody reading this, that all those 3 answers are belief answers, and none of them are scientific or even rational. It is like positing that the car was at 80 mph between point A and B despite no acceleration, because gods, whichever let us say Baast, made it so. Irrational.


    The only valid conclusion with all the FUNDEMMENTAL premises we have now, is that the earth is far far older than 10K. Billion of year old.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
    1. Re:Incorrect by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Lol.. i'm mildly amused by your attempt but the reality is that you are trying too hard to talk past the point as if it somehow invalidates it.

      First, answer this question. Is 2(1+1) equal to 2+2?

      Of course it is. Nothing in math or science prevents there being more than one way to calculate 4. So, is there more than one way to nake the color white? Of course there is, there is a separate color palete for pigment representaltions and light. So the fact that evidence shows one usable way of understanding does not negate another, it just shows we have useful information that we can use and build other information from.

      I was not in any way saying science was not correct. I was saying that in science, the existance of one theory or interpretation of evidence does not preclude any other. When someone inserts a supernatural force, it cannot be falsified and is not scientific but it also is not anti science. Even the possabilty of the earth being younger but appearing older must exist in science else you stop being scientific. Of course there is no evidence i know of that but if it isn't allowed, we are out of science and into religion or something else.

      So i was at a flee market the other day. I saw this old antique table. I also saw someone purchase it for what seemed a small amount of money. I looked at it and saw the dove tail joints were modern and it wasn't old at all. Someone created this table purposely making it look old for astheics. The idea and concept is not new or foreign in thought or practice. This guy just wasn't trying to fool people so it was easy to spot on examination and with the price. Nothing in science prevented the manipulation of the finish or style to appear old. Nothing in science prevented me from noticing it either. In fact, i could have used science to discover its real age or i could have just taken the guy's word when he told me it was a reproduction. The later is not scientific and it certainly is not anti science.

  34. RTFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://history.nasa.gov/spaceact.html

    "To provide for research into problems of flight within and outside the earth's atmosphere, and for other purposes."

    "(1) the term "aeronautical and space activities" means(A) research into, and the solution of, problems of flight within and outside the earth's atmosphere, (B) the development, construction, testing, and operation for research purposes of aeronautical and space vehicles, and (C) such other activities as may be required for the exploration of space; and"

    Notice the "problems of flight" qualifier?

    Important qualifier - not general scientific research for the sake of research, but rather research INTO PROBLEMS OF FLIGHT.

    Since you find it important to cite the original Act, you should perhaps cite the originate act.

    There can be no doubt what the original intent of the Act is or its mission, yet, clearly, politics has modified its mission over time.

    Perhaps its best to refocus NASA towards its original mission - research into problems of flight.

  35. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khallow · · Score: 0
    I have to agree, Jane Q. Public won this one. I backtracked through the threads, and I see no evidence that Jane Q. Public got "net" wrong. khayman80 OTOH ought to brag only about things he/she didn't get badly wrong. For those who are interested, it is instructive how many levels deep you have to go in quotes before you finally get to the "net" debate which khayman80 posts endlessly about. This is a clear case of harassment. Finally, we have this gem from Jane Q. Public:

    In the interest of goodwill I would warn you about trying to argue with this person. I have documented proof that (a) he doesn't argue honestly, (b) he will personally hound and harass people, especially if they prove him wrong. He doesn't seem to be able to accept being wrong.

    [...] If you insist on arguing with him, prepare to have your words repeated -- for years -- out of context and in distorted and misleading ways. I suppose it's possible that it's some kind of personal vendetta against just me, but I suspect an actual personality flaw.

    Looks like Jane Q. Public got another one right.

  36. The tides are changing by cloud.pt · · Score: 1

    Politics was once a major instigator of NASA having more funding than national health back in the cold war moon race. Who gives two flying if now other matters take priority. It's not like space, physics or science in general are going to stop. Researchers have material to study for centuries, and all they have to do is look up (or even down). If anything, they can rely on new findings from other space agencies. The US is mostly worrying with a matter of honor and space-faring tradition rather than the greater good.

  37. Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 0

    I just reposted the comment Jane emphatically rejected. If there's some logical way to explain why Jane rejected my very simple comment that doesn't involve rejecting the standard physics definition of the term "net" them Jane and/or Khallow should consider providing it.

  38. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 1

    s/them/then

  39. Yet another bullshit liberal smear piece by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I really wish that people would stop calling this crap news, and take some kind of note when it's an editorial here on Slashdot. If calling people names and making unsupported assertions qualifies as news today, we're all fucking in trouble. Let's keep Slashdot non-partisan.

  40. CC research is a waste of time and money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If the "science is settled" then I'd have to agree with Cruz: there's no point spending another cent on research to prove what is already known.

  41. Change by mdsolar · · Score: 0

    The change in climate change keeps changing so continued study is needed.

  42. We have an agency that studies the weather... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... we don't need to be paying for two to do the same thing.
    Although if you need to spread research money to cronies, that is an effective method for accomplishing that.

  43. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khallow · · Score: 1

    For the edification of the rest of Slashdot, backtracking the link that Khayman80 provides, goes through several irrelevant threads until it finally, after around 20 or 30 disgression/regressions/parent posts gets to this post made in September 2014. I side with Jane Q. Public fully (once I saw that he/she explicitly stated an assumption I had concerns about). Fuck you, khayman80.

    What I find particular mendacious about this whole idiocy is not the bone-headed, ridiculously long, linked list of zero information, "nuh uh" responses from khayman80, but the innocent-sounding "I just reposted" remark above which dumps you at the head of a very long linked list of bullshit rather than linking you to the meat of the disagreement - like I did above. It's quite clearly harassment from a fool.

    khayman80, next time you want to dredge up an old argument, link to the argument directly. It shouldn't take me an hour to figure out what the argument is even about. I wondered for about ten minutes or so, if even the eventual source post would be from last year! It just kept going on and on. I still haven't found out where the quoted comments in Jane Q. Public's source post came from. I guess it was email or perhaps another endless argument elsewhere which didn't show up in my Google search.

  44. smart but biased by argStyopa · · Score: 1

    Phil Plait is a very, very smart man. In fact I agree with misty of his positions on the space program, etc.

    However, I don't recall him issuing a 1000 word screed about how "politics is hurting NASA" when Bolden announced that NASA's foremost mission was Muslim outreach? And unfortunately that's where Mr Plait apparently decides to trade his science credibility (which is very high) to make overly political points. He's certainly entitled to do so, but when people maunder about how science skepticism is born, there's your example.

    --
    -Styopa
    1. Re:smart but biased by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      He (Bolden) didn't say it was NASA's foremost mission. He said it was perhaps the foremost of the three things that Obama asked him to get done. I think "make sure we keep flying rockets and stuff" kinda went without saying, and I'm guessing Plait understood that.

      Bolden: One, he [Obama] wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math and engineering."

      And I don't see any of those three things being particularly detrimental from a science point of view, even if they also have political motivations.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    2. Re:smart but biased by itzly · · Score: 1

      Maybe he realized that this Muslim outreach program wasn't going to cost a bunch of money, so it wouldn't hurt NASA's more important missions.

    3. Re:smart but biased by hondo77 · · Score: 1

      Never happened. Go away.

      --
      I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
  45. Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 0

    I still haven't found out where the quoted comments in Jane Q. Public's source post came from. I guess it was email or perhaps another endless argument elsewhere which didn't show up in my Google search.

    No, everything is public and linked here. If you could be more specific about exactly which quoted comments you can't find, I could easily give you the link.

    I side with Jane Q. Public fully (once I saw that he/she explicitly stated an assumption I had concerns about). Fuck you, khayman80.

    Charming. You side with Jane Q. Public fully regarding this very simple problem? Let's recap. An electrically heated plate is in a vacuum chamber with cooler chamber walls. The problem is: what's the required electrical heating power?

    To solve this problem, start by applying conservation of energy. Draw a boundary around the heat source:

    power in = electrical heating power + radiative power in from the chamber walls
    power out = radiative power out from the heat source

    Since power in = power out through any boundary where nothing inside is changing (conservation of energy):

    electrical heating power + radiative power in from the chamber walls = radiative power out from the heat source

    Jane, however, insists that:

    My energy conservation equation is this: electrical power in = (epsilon * sigma) * T^4 * area = radiant power out [Jane Q. Public, 2014-10-08]

    So which energy conservation equation do you fully side with, Khallow?

  46. Oh yeah? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    Well, you scientists are poisoning our ability to do politics! With your studies and your so-called "facts"...

    Smite them, God! ...

    He's-a cookin' something up.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  47. Why, oh, why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why a retard, anti-science and pro-superstition individual like Ted Cruz is selected as chairman of anything to do with science and technology?

  48. It will never happen, but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Constitution needs to be amended to impose term limits on these idiots since the voting public is so worthless. Second, there needs to be a basic education test requirement for anyone running for federal office. If you think the world was created 6,000 years ago, or man cannot impact the climate, if you have no business being in office.

  49. A good documentary is coming on all this by That_Dan_Guy · · Score: 1

    Check out the Fight For Space. It should be released shortly.

    http://www.fightforspace.com/

    It will go in depth with all the politics involved according to the leaders in space technology and exploration.

  50. !@#$ Slashdot. by whistlingtony · · Score: 1

    This is supposed to be News for Nerds. This is F!@#$ing NASA for crying out loud. Half the posts here are "Climate change isn't real!" and the other half are a call for some libertarian BS about small government and how NASA shouldn't do basic reasearch into our planet.

    What happened?

    I'm !@#$ing disgusted by the anti science rhetoric here. Here! On a News for Nerds site!?

    This is !@#$ing NASA. Should they launch satellites? Yes! Should they point them inwards AND outwards? Yes! Should Congress stop F!@#$ing with their funding?

    That so many supposed Nerds can just ignore basic science is a testiment to the power of the rhetoric used against us, not to mention the sheer lack of critical thinking that is clearly displayed here. I am disgusted by how low we've sunk. No. YOU'VE sunk.

    Turn in your !@#$ing Nerd badges. You don't deserve them.

    1. Re:!@#$ Slashdot. by cbeaudry · · Score: 1

      Did you forget your medication this morning?

      NASA can launch all the satellites they want. Have the proper agencies monitor them, gather and compile the data.

      NASA need not be involved in that last portion.

    2. Re:!@#$ Slashdot. by itzly · · Score: 1

      NASA need not be involved in that last portion.

      It doesn't really buy you anything to give the job to somebody else, who is equally qualified. It still costs the same amount of federal money, and you still get the same results.

    3. Re:!@#$ Slashdot. by cbeaudry · · Score: 1

      You are right.

      Lets disband ALL agencies and call ALL of them the White House, division of...

  51. NOAA vs NASA by Tulsa_Time · · Score: 2

    Ted Cruz is not anti-science.... he is simply questioning the mission of NASA vs NOAA. I am so tired of the association of Republicans with anti-science... its not true and it is bias at its purest form.

    --
    5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
    1. Re:NOAA vs NASA by gatkinso · · Score: 1

      If only that were true.

      I worked at NASA Goddard in the Laser and Remote Sensing Lab - many of those projects were decidedly in a realm that could be considered Earth Sciences (which is under the same Sciences and Exploration directorate), I am referring to Cloud Physics Lidar, LVIS (which I virtually single handedly wrote the embedded software for), and Cloud Aerosol Transport System. These instruments fly on the Global Hawk and or ER-2 (I think CATS is going to space) and on the surface seem to have a large overlap with NOAA's mission... but in reality they do not. Most other of the instruments out of that lab are spaceborne - and the methodologies used are applied to other missions: after all we can verify a wind mapping lidar here on earth.. good luck trying that on Jupiter.

      While we worked with NOAA and NCAR (we flew on their aircraft) it turns out that in practice there was very little overlap with NOAA, and nothing of value would be gained having them under NOAA - aside from there being the word "Atmosphere(ic)" in the name. In fact, many of these instruments are deployed to support Ice Bridge - which is simply a stop gap aircraft based capability until ICESAT-2 is launched. Now.. should ICESAT-2 be a NOAA project? Nobody is arguing that is should be - and I don;t see Ted Cruz making this case either. He just doesn't want the capability... at all.

      --
      I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
    2. Re:NOAA vs NASA by gatkinso · · Score: 1

      Oops - I meant to say LVIS-GH is what I wrote the embedded code for. LVIS refers to the first generation instrument which I did not work on. Sorry Dave.

      --
      I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
  52. politics and religion is poison by FudRucker · · Score: 1

    politics is treachery

    religion is brainwashing

    they both have been controlling the population for millennia for selfish and divisive reasons which is usually profits and territory and resources, and both have been guilty of genocide or mass murder many many times

    --
    Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
  53. NASA's Charter by dcbrianw · · Score: 1

    NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Space exploration embodies its charter, per the 1958 Space Act: "To develop the arts and sciences of flight in the atmosphere and in space and to go where those technologies will allow us to go". Climate change research just doesn't fit. Ted Cruz in his chairmanship wants to re-align the agency with the purpose assigned to it upon its creation. These actions do not politicize NASA, but rather center it on non-political matters. Similarly, the Center of Disease Control now studies gun homicides, which does nothing to further our knowledge of disease. And only to reveal a bias in such research, those studies do not include lives saved by defensive gun use. The community most insistent that manmade CO2 causes climate change hasn't convinced much of the American population. In fact, they have lost ground in the space of public opinion due to a lack of transparency in their research as well as outright hostility towards other credible research that may challenge theirs. If you look at the re-tasking of NASA or other administrations seemingly out-of-scope re-tasking, it should raise your suspicions. Politicians haven't gotten the traction they've wanted promoting a narrative, and they seek to hijack the good name of something unrelated to lend credit to what hasn't earned credit on its own merit.

  54. Idiotic... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You headline an article with something that's been going on from day one. Apollo was as political as you get (ehhem space race...), anyone remember the Apollo - Soyuz mission? Joint Mir missions prior to the (uhhhh) International (I guess that means the US pays for it but everyone else claims it...) Space Station... and of course the Muslim Presidents Muslim science outreach decree for NASA (gotta put the ballistic in the missile after all) and then there's the billions we can throw at climate change studies cause those are just the PUREST KIND OF SCIENCE WITH NO POLITICS INVOLVED.... RIGHT?! Good Lord! Grow the hell up. Nationalize NASA and let Elon Musk and the other private space companies split up the money and the facilities (they're working on it as it is). At least they wont spend $750 million a launch, for 35 years, on a shuttle that blows up every 50th flight. Time for NASA to go, along with about 90% of federal government. Gimme Ted Cruz or Rand Paul any day of the week ya freak'in socialists! Go to GB or Australia or any one of the European shit holes.

  55. Re:Yet another Ted Cruz bashing article !b by sumdumass · · Score: 1

    Lol.. you are not a good driver when you get in an accident. Almost all accidents can be avoided if you are driving. But that is not important.

    What is important would be your anti explaination. It is flawed in more than one ways. First, no one needs to reject anything. A young earth is completely compatable if the creator card is played. It simply was created to look that way. Ok that error pointed out. The next would be you anti christian point. The only way it would make sense in comparison would be if you treat science like a religion. The term you were looking for is blasphemus. That is because the church does not allow changes. Science specifically does. Making a non scientific statement should not endanger your worldview unless it is your religion. It is not blaphemus to science. It is not anti science. And that is true no matter how much it hurts your feelings.

  56. Whether you think climate change is real or not&md by rs79 · · Score: 1

    8th December 2010 13:24 GMT - A group of top NASA and NOAA scientists say that current climate models predicting global warming are far too gloomy, and have failed to properly account for an important cooling factor which will come into play as CO2 levels rise.
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

    Why did Earth’s surface temperature stop rising in the past decade?

    "Since the turn of the century, however, the change in Earth’s global mean surface temperature has been close to zero."
    "Since 2000, temperatures have been warmer than average, but they did not increase significantly." Data courtesy of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.

    http://www.climate.gov/news-fe...

    A hypothesis that the heat was sequestered in the ocean abyss was proven incorrect by NASA in October of 2014 - "the cold waters of Earth's deep ocean have not warmed measurably since 2005", according to a new NASA study, leaving unsolved the mystery of why global warming appears to have stopped in 1998. It started in 1978. But there really has been no warming this century.

    http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014...

    "97%+ of geologists agreed the continents were stable. It was Settled Science. Hundreds of research papers supported it. Overwhelming consensus. And wrong. And, oddly (not really, if you think about it a moment), it was not a geologist but a meteorologist, Alfred Wegener, who ultimately showed all the mutually agreeing geologists they had it all wrong; the continents move." - Dr. Michael K. Oliver

    Global energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide stalled in 2014
    http://www.iea.org/newsroomand...

    Sea ice is increasing
    http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/i...
    http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/i...

    https://web.archive.org/web/20...

    http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/i...
    http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/i...

    OP is less aware of the science than Cruz is. How is that even possible?

    --
    Need Mercedes parts ?
  57. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  58. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khallow · · Score: 1
    Wait, you're "Dumb Scientist"? I guess after a documented year of this, you'll have to rename your blog, "Creepy Stalker". Well, at least you're not yet WOOFY GOOFY level of nuts.

    electrical heating power + radiative power in from the chamber walls = radiative power out from the heat source

    In the link I provided, Jane Q. Public explained why he/she dropped the "radiative power in" term as being negligible. I found the argument sufficient.

    Having read your blog a bit more, I think it's time you dial back on your obsessive stalking. Glancing over your Dumb Scientist link, I see that you linked to my Slashdot posts dozens of times without ever discussing this with me or having a coherent argument for why you did so.

    I don't really mind, since it increases the visibility of the posts. I think they're good material and will weather the years well. But you're missing an opportunity for enlightening and/or entertainment.

    Just two weeks later, it becomes clear that Iâ(TM)ve failed to communicate once again. The futility of these conversations is depressing and frustrating. Itâ(TM)s just not worth trying to clear up this apparent confusion of ~200 year instrumental aggregates with ~650,000 year ice core proxies like EPICA.

    Update: Iâ(TM)ve failed to communicate again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.

    Each "again" is a link to one of my posts over what appears to be a year period between 2013 and 2014. I can't tell if they're all climate related (I doubt a one of them has anything to do with 650k year ice cores), but I had fun reading through them. Since Slashdot works so poorly with Google search, I might have better luck searching for my global warming change-related posts via your blog than via Google. There's some good stuff in there. Maybe you ought to read through my stuff sometime.

    As a final remark, I posted this on your website in 2011 and my opinion has not changed since except for the last paragraph (due to the current creepy stalker vibe).

    Let me put it simply. I donâ(TM)t trust the current research. I donâ(TM)t trust your or my characterizations of the current research. I donâ(TM)t have the time to figure this out though my belief is that there is insufficient uncertainty in the predictions of future climate change.

    I figure though that this will all settled down in a couple of decades. Weâ(TM)ll almost double the duration of satellite-based evidence (plus have a greater span of data collected) and global warming will be more pronounced by then. Further, the economics side will be better known. Weâ(TM)ll have a better idea of the future direction of fossil fuels since peak oil will probably happen by then with peak natural gas coming. Alternative technologies like solar cells (which appear to be declining in price per watt by about 50% per eight years) may obsolete some or most fossil fuel needs. Perhaps the problem will solve itself by then.

    I thank you for this marvelous website though. You have been sincere, helpful, and knowledgeable. I will consider your words even though Iâ(TM)m obviously not very receptive at the moment.

    That remains my position. A couple of decades of climate should be enough, if there's a near future problem. So far, it doesn't appear to indicate such a problem wih slow warming growth.

  59. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 1

    In the link I provided, Jane Q. Public explained why he/she dropped the "radiative power in" term as being negligible. I found the argument sufficient.

    Wow. I responded: Jane's accounting for "power out" without including a term for "power in". That's not A = A, it's A = 0 because one of the terms has been ignored. It's led Jane to the absurd conclusion that electrical heating power doesn't depend on the cooler chamber wall temperature. If that's the case, then how did we detect the 2.7K cosmic microwave background radiation with warmer detectors? How do uncooled IR detectors see cooler objects? Again, why is Venus hotter than Mercury?

    Maybe khallow's referring to Jane's insistence that:

    ... all the radiation going IN which strikes the hotter body is effectively reflected or scattered ...

    But I repeatedly failed to communicate that the grey body equation has to reduce to the black body equation when emissivity = 0, in which case there are no reflections or scattering.

  60. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 1

    Ack, I meant when emissivity = 1, as I said originally.

  61. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Thanks for that. You just saved me a lot of work. Although I am pretty darned sure that wasn't your intent.

    I'm not worried about what you say here. I also have records, and I remember the conversations.

    Other people, who actually know some physics (or have the proper textbooks) can follow the conversations if they like, and see that indeed, your "solution" to the problem that I let YOU define was just plain wrong.

    I haven't bothered to go through what you've posted here yet, but if it's anything like what you did before, I expect it's grossly incomplete and cherry-picked.

  62. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    I see also that about half those links, or more, are to your "dumb scientist" site, where you like to indulge in your one-sided arguments against cherry-picked, out-of-context comments by others.

    I mentioned that to you years ago, but I see you're still doing it.

    You can be sure that I am putting the full picture together, no cherry-picking on my part.

    I did take exception to what YOU were calling "net" in the context of that argument. But I certainly do know what net is.

    I repeat that my "NO!!!" comment was about your entire fallacious line of reasoning, in which you failed at basic math. That comment was about your incorrect USE of "net", NOT about what the definition of "net" is. To even think that's what I was saying, given the whole context of the argument, is pretty stupid.

  63. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Jane, my "line of argument" was very simple. If you weren't disagreeing about the definition of the word "net" then why did you scream "NO!!!!!" in response to my comment?

    I've explained this to you in public about 10 times now. I'm not going to do it again. I consider your incessant re-questioning about things I've already answered to be harassment.

    But net radiative power out of a boundary around the source = "radiative power out" minus "radiative power in", so the equation Jane just described also says:

    And this is where you're misusing "net". With all objects having the same emissivity, in a vacuum, no NET radiation is absorbed by the hotter body from the colder body. Therefore, that radiation cannot also be claimed to be part of the net radiated power of the hotter body.

    I repeat once again: you're counting the radiation twice.

    And I've explained that to you many times now. I've also explained that at least 3 textbooks on radiative heat transfer agree with me. And I've given you the titles of at least one of those textbooks, but if I remember, all three.

    So you can look up YOURSELF that you are wrong. And you have NEVER, even once, tried to show me how the textbooks were wrong about this issue.

    And I will repeat this again, too: your insistence on requiring me to defend my position about an argument you LOST months ago is harassment.

    If you want to win, you will have to show that those textbooks were wrong. You haven't even tried to do so. So take it elsewhere, I am even less than not interested.

  64. BE AWARE ALL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anytime you start talking and hating on the rich, you can rest assured that Shanghai Bill will come riding in to shit on you all. Don't let his arguments fool you. He IS one of the 1%. Or at least he's almost there. He routinely talks in other threads about all the companies he runs, and how he loves firing all the slackers. Go checks his post history for confirmation. The main reason I posted this was to inform our new readers that this guy is biased to the extreme. He IS a corporate person and enjoys his court mandated personhood more than a decent human should.

  65. Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 0

    ... I repeat that my "NO!!!" comment was about your entire fallacious line of reasoning, in which you failed at basic math. That comment was about your incorrect USE of "net", NOT about what the definition of "net" is. To even think that's what I was saying, given the whole context of the argument, is pretty stupid. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-17]

    Charming. Once again:

    If power in = power out (your own stipulation), and the only NET power INTO a defined spherical region is electrical, and the only NET power OUT of that region is radiative, then net radiative power out at steady-state must therefore be equal to the net electrical power consumed. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-12-14]

    Jane seems to be saying that at steady-state:

    net electrical power consumed = net radiative power out

    But net radiative power out of a boundary around the source = "radiative power out" minus "radiative power in", so the equation Jane just described also says:

    net electrical power consumed = "radiative power out" minus "radiative power in"

    All I did there was substitute the standard physics definition of the term "net" into your equation. So if you're not disputing the definition of the word "net", you must agree with that simple substitution. Right?

  66. Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 0

    But net radiative power out of a boundary around the source = "radiative power out" minus "radiative power in", so the equation Jane just described also says:

    And this is where you're misusing "net". ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-17]

    Jane, all I did there was substitute the standard physics definition of the term "net" into your equation. So if you're not disputing the definition of the word "net", you must agree with that simple substitution. Right?

    ... With all objects having the same emissivity, in a vacuum, no NET radiation is absorbed by the hotter body from the colder body. Therefore, that radiation cannot also be claimed to be part of the net radiated power of the hotter body. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-17]

    Once again, it seems like we disagree about the physics definition of the term "NET". Once again, using the standard physics definition of the term "NET", the phrase "no NET radiation is absorbed by the hotter body from the colder body" actually means that more power is radiated from hot to cold than vice-versa. (Which is true in every equation I've derived.) Since net radiative power out of a boundary around the source = "radiative power out" minus "radiative power in", a physicist using that standard definition has to include terms for radiative power out and radiative power in.

    ... You are counting the radiation from the cooler body twice. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-01-01]

    ... I repeat once again: you're counting the radiation twice. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-17]

    It's bewildering that you keep saying this. Anyone can see that I'm counting the radiation from the cooler body once:

    An electrically heated plate is in a vacuum chamber with cooler chamber walls. Draw a boundary around the heat source:

    power in = electrical heating power + radiative power in from the chamber walls
    power out = radiative power out from the heat source

    Since power in = power out through any boundary where nothing inside is changing:

    electrical heating power + radiative power in from the chamber walls = radiative power out from the heat source

    ... I've also explained that at least 3 textbooks on radiative heat transfer agree with me. And I've given you the titles of at least one of those textbooks, but if I remember, all three. ... So you can look up YOURSELF that you are wrong. And you have NEVER, even once, tried to show me how the textbooks were wrong about this issue. ... If you want to win, you will have to show that those textbooks were wrong. You haven't even tried to do so. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-17]

    Riiight:

    Once again, Jane has 4 textbooks that say "radiative power out per square meter = (e*s)*T^4". Since I've repeatedly agreed with that statement, those textbooks don't disagree with me.

    Once again, Jane/Lonny Eachus just has 4 textbooks that say "radiative power out = (epsilon * sigma)*T^4*area". I bet Jane $100 that his textbooks don't claim that electrical heating power = radiative power

  67. Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 0

    Oops, "Riiight" should link here instead.

  68. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Jane, all I did there was substitute the standard physics definition of the term "net" into your equation. So if you're not disputing the definition of the word "net", you must agree with that simple substitution. Right?

    I am NOT going over this with you again. It isn't going to happen.

    Your "solution" broke the laws of thermodynamics 2 different ways. If you want to prove yourself right, you'll have to prove those textbooks wrong.

  69. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Jane seems to be saying that at steady-state:

    I am NOT going to re-argue this with you. If you want to prove yourself right, you're going to have to prove those textbooks wrong. I will only repeat here what I've stated before. Given the conditions we discussed (i.e., gray bodies with same emissivity, vacuum, steady-state, etc.:

    (A) NET radiative heat transfer is always from warmer object to cooler. Anything else is a violation of the fundamental laws of thermodynamics.

    (B) The equation for radiative power output of a body at steady-state does not change in the presence of cooler bodies. It remains exactly the same. It is dependent ONLY on emissivity, thermodynamic temperature, and the Stefan-Boltzmann constant.

  70. Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 1

    So you dispute my simple substitution of the standard physics definition of the term "net" into your equation, while simultaneously insisting that you don't dispute the standard physics definition?

    ... There is no net radiative heat transfer from cold to hot. That’s a violation of 1st & 2nd Thermo Laws. [Lonny Eachus, 2015-03-01]

    Good grief. For months, I've repeatedly explained that Jane's Sky Dragon Slayer equation violates conservation of energy. I've repeatedly asked Jane to write down an energy conservation equation for a boundary around the source without wrongly "cancelling" terms. Jane/Lonny Eachus adamantly refuses to take the very first step in applying the first law of thermodynamics to this problem, but as usual he's willing to endlessly insist that he's right.

    ... Your "solution" broke the laws of thermodynamics 2 different ways. If you want to prove yourself right, you'll have to prove those textbooks wrong. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-17]

    Once again, no matter how many times Slayers are told that the second law of thermodynamics isn't violated because more power is radiated from hot to cold than vice-versa, that fact never seems to penetrate their skulls.

    Once again, Jane has 4 textbooks that say "radiative power out per square meter = (e*s)*T^4". Since I've repeatedly agreed with that statement, those textbooks don't disagree with me.

    Once again, Jane/Lonny Eachus just has 4 textbooks that say "radiative power out = (epsilon * sigma)*T^4*area". I bet Jane $100 that his textbooks don't claim that electrical heating power = radiative power out. That's Jane's incorrect Slayer assumption. Even Jane should be able to recognize that his 4 unnamed textbooks don't support him, because deep down even Jane should be able to tell that he's just endlessly blustering to cover up the fact that he can't produce any textbook quotes saying that electrical heating power = radiative power out.

  71. If there is an example of fighting over by k6mfw · · Score: 1

    financial scraps, this is it (really, this dirt change out of total fed budget). And another example of written laws and charters that are interpreted very differently among different people (politicians and various people on the forums).

    --
    mfwright@batnet.com
  72. Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 0

    ... NET radiative heat transfer is always from warmer object to cooler. Anything else is a violation of the fundamental laws of thermodynamics. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-17]

    ... which just means that more power needs to be radiated from warmer to cooler than vice-versa. At least, that's the conclusion drawn using the standard physics definition of the term "net". (And once again, every equation I've derived satisfies that condition.)

    ... The equation for radiative power output of a body at steady-state does not change in the presence of cooler bodies. It remains exactly the same. It is dependent ONLY on emissivity, thermodynamic temperature, and the Stefan-Boltzmann constant. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-17]

    Good grief.

    Once again, I've already agreed that it's not necessary to account for cooler bodies in the temperature versus power out equation. Again, we're not disputing the equation for radiative power out. We're disputing the equation describing conservation of energy around a boundary drawn around the heat source:
    power in = electrical heating power + radiative power in from the chamber walls
    power out = radiative power out from the heat source

    There is no need to account for other, cooler bodies when calculating radiative power out. What, do you imagine that these cooler bodies are somehow "sucking" power away from the heat source? And that a warmer body (but still cooler than the source) "sucks" less power than colder ones do? That seems to be what you're saying here. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-10-05]

    Once again, Jane, I never said we need to account for other, cooler bodies when calculating radiative power out.

    Once again, I'm actually saying that "radiative power out" is different than "electrical heating power". For instance, we agree that "radiative power out" stays constant even if the chamber walls are also at 150F, but "electrical heating power" goes to zero. So they can't be the same.

    You insist that the radiant power output calculation of the heat source has to take into account the cooler temperature of the chamber walls. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-10-13]

    Once again, no. I've repeatedly agreed that radiative power out only depends on emissivity and temperature.

    Once again, I'm just saying that "radiative power out" is different than "electrical heating power".

    ... If you want to prove yourself right, you're going to have to prove those textbooks wrong. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-17]

    Once again, Jane has 4 textbooks that say "radiative power out per square meter = (e*s)*T^4". Since I've repeatedly agreed with that statement, those textbooks don't disagree with me.

    Once again, Jane/Lonny Eachus just has 4 textbooks that say "radiative power out = (epsilon * sigma)*T^4*area". I bet Jane $100 that his textbooks

  73. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  74. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Even Jane should be able to recognize that his 4 unnamed textbooks don't support him, because deep down even Jane should be able to tell that he's just endlessly blustering to cover up the fact that he can't produce any textbook quotes saying that electrical heating power = radiative power out.

    Completely irrelevant. You found a temperature difference = power equation that applied to a completely different situation and you've been inappropriately applying it to this problem ever since. Much like when you tried to call a heat transfer equation the equation for radiative power out. (Hint: it isn't.)

    But the reality is: the power source doesn't matter. Only power input matters. It doesn't matter whether that power is an electrical source, or a kerosene heater, or friction from a horse's ass... which I seem to be seeing a lot of lately for some strange reason.

  75. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    So you dispute my simple substitution of the standard physics definition of the term "net" into your equation, while simultaneously insisting that you don't dispute the standard physics definition?

    I am disputing nothing at this time. I am NOT going to re-argue this with you. I have exactly zero reason or desire to do so.

  76. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Once again [slashdot.org], Jane has 4 textbooks that say "radiative power out per square meter = (e*s)*T^4". Since I've repeatedly agreed with that statement, those textbooks don't disagree with me.

    I will, however, correct this one straw-man, which you have made over and over and over again.

    The textbooks say a great deal more than that. And you have been unwilling to admit that they're right about the rest of it, too.

    Your answer was wrong. I showed you where it was wrong. I used standard textbook radiant heat transfer equations to prove it. I explained to you WHY it was wrong.

    I have nothing further to say, unless you want me to just keep coming back here and showing people where you're trying to misleading everybody yet again.

    You don't get to keep trying to make your problem my problem without consequences. I strongly suggest you knock it off.

  77. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Once again [slashdot.org], no matter how many times Slayers are told that the second law of thermodynamics isn't violated because more power is radiated from hot to cold than vice-versa, that fact never seems to penetrate their skulls.

    And once again, this is a mis-statement of the facts. Nobody I am aware of claims -- and I certainly did not claim -- that thermodynamics is violated because more power is radiated from hot to cold than vice-versa. Show me where somebody did say that.

    In order for YOUR argument to work, a sphere of one substance suspended in a vacuum cavity surrounded by the same substance at the same temperature, would spontaneously increase in temperature. If it did that, it would be at a higher temperature (i.e., radiate more power to the wall of the cavity), which would then itself become warmer, and you would have a universe-destroying positive feedback.

    That doesn't happen, man. Physics just doesn't work that way. It's a ludicrous self-destructive argument. It doesn't work. I've explained that to you in plain English, and with simple textbook physics equations, and it just doesn't work.

    The only thing left, then, is that you're either a troll or a loon. I don't care to guess which. I just want you to go away and STOP HARASSING ME.

  78. Politics within and without... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Every article on NASA funding evokes strong feelings. An old dear friend was doing engineering (structural) work on the then Space Station Freedom and he told me bizarre stories of how NASA research was a wild west blend of toiling in academic grant hell internal politics with regular external political seismic upheavals that changed thousands of programs with PBS news hour kind of notice. He loved what he did, and stayed with it for decades. When he left seven years ago he told me emotionally that "I just couldn't love the idea enough anymore to overlook the lack of progress, all while doing it for little or even at times, nothing." I wonder who, if anyone, will fill his slot for the next 25 years?

  79. Star Trek by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cruz just wants to be Captain Kirk and have sex with space aliens.

  80. Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 1

    So you dispute my simple substitution of the standard physics definition of the term "net" into your equation, while simultaneously insisting that you don't dispute the standard physics definition?

    I am disputing nothing at this time. I am NOT going to re-argue this with you. I have exactly zero reason or desire to do so. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-17]

    Don't you see how the fact that you previously disputed my simple substitution of the standard physics definition of the term "net" into your equation looked like disputing that standard physics definition?

    If you're really not disputing my simple substitution any longer, then you're now agreeing with my energy conservation equation. If so, that's great news!

    Even Jane should be able to recognize that his 4 unnamed textbooks don't support him, because deep down even Jane should be able to tell that he's just endlessly blustering to cover up the fact that he can't produce any textbook quotes saying that electrical heating power = radiative power out.

    Completely irrelevant. You found a temperature difference = power equation that applied to a completely different situation and you've been inappropriately applying it to this problem ever since. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-17]

    Good grief, Jane. You've previously hallucinated conduction and convection terms in my equations describing conservation of energy through vacuum-filled spaces. If that's what you mean by "inappropriately applying" then you should look at my equations very carefully. Notice the complete lack of conduction and convection terms. Notice that my equations are based on a fundamental principle called "conservation of energy" that applies to all situations.

    ... Much like when you tried to call a heat transfer equation the equation for radiative power out. (Hint: it isn't.) [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-17]

    Good grief, Jane. This is your response to my comment explicitly and repeatedly telling you that radiative power out is different than electrical heating power? I've repeatedly told you that conservation of energy leads to heat transfer equations that describe electrical heating power, but the Stefan-Boltzmann equation can give you "radiative power out".

    Once again: the Stefan-Boltzmann equation can give you "radiative power out" but only a completely different principle called "conservation of energy" can give you a totally different quantity known as "electrical heating power".

    Once again: "radiative power out" isn't just a fancy way of saying "electrical heating power". They're completely different. To find electrical heating power, Jane needs to use conservation of energy, where power in = power out. That results in a heat transfer equation, not just an equation for "radiative power out".

    Jane, I've been very clear that a heat transfer equation is used to find electrical heating power, not "radiative power out". And yet you keep claiming otherwise. Why, Jane?

    ... In order for YOUR argument to work, a sphere of one substance suspended in a vacuum cavity surrounded by the same substance at the same temperature, would spontaneously increase in temperature. If it did

  81. Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 1

    Answered here.

  82. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

    So which energy conservation equation do you fully side with, Khallow?

    I'm not Khallow but I support the energy conservation of you remaining quiet and still

    --
    The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
  83. The GOP are a sickness in the heart of America by LinuxLuver · · Score: 1

    Seriously? Stop studying the Earth because what they are finding conflicts with what the GOP prefer to believe? That's insane. Who votes for these idiots? It verges on evil.

    --
    Only boring people are ever bored.
  84. Re:Whether you think climate change is real or not by LinuxLuver · · Score: 1

    BS to this: "the cold waters of Earth's deep ocean have not warmed measurably since 2005", according to a new NASA study, leaving unsolved the mystery of why global warming appears to have stopped in 1998. It started in 1978. But there really has been no warming this century." The careful choice of words about "deep ocean" ignores the rest of the ocean. It takes centuries for the deep ocean to be affected by what's going on up top. Beware of lies told in this way.

    --
    Only boring people are ever bored.
  85. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    Energy is always conserved, so power in = power out through any boundary where nothing inside is changing.

    For the hundredth time: nobody is disputing this. Your own attempt at a solution was what violated this rule. I am aware that you don't seem to understand why, after it was explained to you several times. But YOU do not seem to be aware that is not MY problem. And I am very far from happy with your attempts to publicly MAKE IT my problem. In case you missed it, that isn't working.

    As usual, that doesn't make any sense.

    It doesn't make any sense to you. My analysis made sense to everybody else I showed it to.

    I've repeatedly explained that in every single equation I've derived, more power is radiated from hot to cold than vice versa. So my solution doesn't violate the second law of thermodynamics (or the first).

    And this is where YOU are mis-stating what is meant by "net". You say "more" goes from hot to cold, but you have also been claiming that SOME goes from cold to hot.

    But what you're not getting is: given the nature of the experiment, that would be creating energy from nothing. You are increasing the thermodynamic energy of a hotter body by transferring heat to it from a colder body or bodies. And I'm not sorry to tell you: nature doesn't work that way.

    I know what your argument is. I haven't misunderstood it. You're just wrong.

    The statement that "no net energy is transferred to the warmer body from the colder" is exactly WHY the equation for radiant heat output does NOT change in the presence of colder bodies. BUT... you neglect the fact that it would have to, if it were absorbing and re-radiating radiation from those colder bodies.

    Your statement is a contradiction. Whether you claim it is a "raising" of energy of the warmer body, or "less loss" from the warmer body, the only other input power is the same. So you end up with a "hotter" hot body. But if your hot body is hotter, then its radiative output CHANGES, and so then does the temperature of the colder body, and you have created a feedback loop, not a new equilibrium. As I have already mentioned, you don't get to do that. You're adding energy from nowhere.

    Further, even if you tried to maintain that it wasn't a feedback loop but just a new equilibrium, with the hotter temperature you would still have to increase the power to maintain the exterior walls at a constant temperature. Which means you would be extracting more thermal energy from the system... but not adding any more. Contradiction.

    A given input energy is only going to raise a body of given properties to a certain maximum temperature. It doesn't matter whether that energy is electricity or cow farts. Any other assertion is... well... hot air.

    I am completely done here. I have nothing further to say to you about this, regardless of whether you try to distort the issue even further.

  86. Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 1

    ... I will do you a favor here, and say: don't bother to go calculating the energy, either. The problem is that an analysis of this kind, based on the assumption that power-in = power-out, is doomed to fail except in coincidental cases. Even conservation of energy can give very misleading results. The black body example I gave shows why your "energy conservation just inside the surface" won't work. ... power-in = power-out is not necessarily true, and in fact that is probably a very rare exception. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2014-09-07]

    Energy is always conserved, so power in = power out through any boundary where nothing inside is changing.

    For the hundredth time: nobody is disputing this. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-19]

    "Nobody" is disputing this, apparently in the same way that "nobody" is disputing my simple substitution of the standard physics definition of the term "net" into Jane's equation.

    ... The equation for radiative power output of a body at steady-state does not change in the presence of cooler bodies. It remains exactly the same. It is dependent ONLY on emissivity, thermodynamic temperature, and the Stefan-Boltzmann constant. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-17]

    ... The statement that "no net energy is transferred to the warmer body from the colder" is exactly WHY the equation for radiant heat output does NOT change in the presence of colder bodies. BUT... you neglect the fact that it would have to, if it were absorbing and re-radiating radiation from those colder bodies. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-19]

    No, Jane. The equation for radiant heat output is still the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. As I've repeatedly told you, we agree that it is dependent ONLY on emissivity, thermodynamic temperature, and the Stefan-Boltzmann constant.

    However, temperature is determined by internal energy. That's determined by a fundamental law called "conservation of energy" which is necessarily true and certainly isn't a "very rare exception" or "doomed to fail".

    The fact that conservation of energy determines temperature doesn't change the equation for radiant heat output, even in the presence of colder bodies. The Stefan-Boltzmann equation remains exactly the same, as I've repeatedly explained.

    ... even if you tried to maintain that it wasn't a feedback loop but just a new equilibrium, with the hotter temperature you would still have to increase the power to maintain the exterior walls at a constant temperature. Which means you would be extracting more thermal energy from the system... but not adding any more. Contradiction. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-19]

    Jane, I've repeatedly failed to explain how "conservation of energy" works. Once again: any power used by the exterior wall cooler (or heater) is simply being moved from some point outside the boundary to another point which is also outside the boundary. Because that power never crosses the boundary, it's irrelevant.

    The word you're looking for isn't "contradiction". It's "irrelevant." As in, "Jane's objection is irrelevant because that power never crosses the boundary."

    I've repeatedly explained that in ever

  87. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    I didn't see the point of addressing your "friction from a horse's ass" observation because that didn't seem productive,

    It certainly wasn't, but it should have been. Most people would have gotten the point.

    Pretending that we only need to know the power flowing in and not the power flowing out is like pretending we only need to know a bathtub's faucet flow rate to determine the steady-state water level in the bathtub, and it doesn't matter if the drain is open or closed.

    I didn't pretend that, and in fact I explicitly stated as much in my last comment. Where did you learn to read?

    Spencer's experiment stipulated that the outer wall be kept at a constant temperature. Given that it is being given input from interior heat sources, it would take energy (over time, power of course) to maintain that low temperature. This was obviously Spencer's attempt to model the radiation "escaping to space".

    However, YOU have repeatedly stated that your electrical power input was considered to be maintaining a temperature difference between the heat source and the outer wall. In fact that was the stated basis for many of your arguments about conservation of energy.

    But you you neglected to consider that when your heat source gets hotter, more thermal energy must be extracted from the walls to maintain that difference. Which consumes more electrical power.

    But your input energy was supposed to be constant. So you're either violating the parameters of the experiment, or you are creating energy from nothing. You don't get to have it both ways, and again your "solution" contradicts itself.

    The rest of this is similar mis-construction or mis-representation of my actual analysis of the problem. There is nothing new here, and nothing I have any reason to repeat yet again.

    DONE. And I mean it. All you're doing is giving me fodder to make you look like a bigger fool later when I publish this. Your continued self-contradiction amounts to little more than clownish buffoonery and indirect insult.

  88. Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 1

    ... Spencer's experiment stipulated that the outer wall be kept at a constant temperature. Given that it is being given input from interior heat sources, it would take energy (over time, power of course) to maintain that low temperature. This was obviously Spencer's attempt to model the radiation "escaping to space". ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-20]

    Again, any power used to maintain that low temperature is simply being moved from some point outside the boundary to another point which is also outside the boundary. Because that power never crosses the boundary, it's irrelevant.

    ... However, YOU have repeatedly stated that your electrical power input was considered to be maintaining a temperature difference between the heat source and the outer wall. In fact that was the stated basis for many of your arguments about conservation of energy. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-20]

    No, the electrical power input is however many watts are sent in through the boundary around the heat source. That's why it's included in the energy conservation equation through that boundary.

    ... But your input energy was supposed to be constant. So you're either violating the parameters of the experiment, or you are creating energy from nothing. You don't get to have it both ways, and again your "solution" contradicts itself. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-20]

    The electrical power input which crosses the boundary around the heat source is constant. Any power which doesn't cross that boundary is irrelevant, because it isn't included in that energy conservation equation.

    And again, inserting the standard physics definition of the word "net" into your equation reproduces the energy conservation equation you're still adamantly rejecting. Would it really be so hard to take a few seconds to write down an energy conservation equation for a boundary around the source without wrongly "cancelling" terms? That's another way to see that you should consider using the standard physics definition of the word "net".

    This is really basic physics, Jane. If you're actually this hopelessly confused, maybe you shouldn't be lecturing physicists about physics.

    And for your sake I hope you actually are just confused. It's difficult to understand why anyone would deliberately spread misinformation about what the National Academy of Sciences calls "one of the defining issues of our time."

  89. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    No, the electrical power input is however many watts are sent in through the boundary around the heat source. That's why it's included in the energy conservation equation through that boundary.

    You have just contradicted yourself AGAIN, because I have records of you clearly arguing that the input power was to maintain a temperature difference between the heat source and the walls, while I was arguing that the input to the heat source was constant but the power to the cooled walls was not stipulated and could be variable.

    So now you're contradicting yourself, in trying to argue otherwise.

    I am NOT going to re-argue this with you. I showed you the correct answer, double-checked according to standard textbook physics, in both directions.

    Anything else you have to say is self-serving prevarication. And you've had an awful lot of it to say. That's a real problem you have, man. It isn't mine.

    You were wrong. Own it, accept it, and move on. Until then, you're being WORSE than an obnoxious ass. You're harassing me and being a PAIN in the ass.

  90. Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 1

    No, the electrical power input is however many watts are sent in through the boundary around the heat source. That's why it's included in the energy conservation equation through that boundary.

    You have just contradicted yourself AGAIN, because I have records of you clearly arguing that the input power was to maintain a temperature difference between the heat source and the walls, while I was arguing that the input to the heat source was constant but the power to the cooled walls was not stipulated and could be variable. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-20]

    Again, the reason the electrical input power heating the source is included in the energy conservation equation through a boundary around the heat source is because it passes through that boundary. That's the important point.

    You still don't seem to understand that power which doesn't pass through that boundary isn't included in that energy conservation equation. I've repeatedly failed to explain that the power to the cooled walls you keep talking about is completely irrelevant because it doesn't pass through that boundary.

    Jane, this is on the level of "drawing within the lines." Does the power pass through the boundary or not? Just think about whether a crayon line crosses the lines in a coloring book. If it does, that power gets included in the energy equation through that boundary.

    Seriously, take a few seconds to write down an energy conservation equation for a boundary around the source without wrongly "cancelling" terms. You'd quickly find that:

    (1) The power to the cooled walls is irrelevant.
    (2) Because only the power passing through the boundary is included, the electrical power heating the source maintains a temperature difference between the heat source and the walls.

    And again, inserting the standard physics definition of the word "net" into your equation reproduces the energy conservation equation you're still adamantly rejecting. That's another independent way to see that you should consider the possibility that only power passing through a boundary should be included in the energy conservation equation across that boundary.

  91. Re:Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    You still don't seem to understand that power which doesn't pass through that boundary isn't included in that energy conservation equation. I've repeatedly failed to explain [slashdot.org] that the power to the cooled walls you keep talking about is completely irrelevant because it doesn't pass through that boundary.

    I understand the situation quite well, and I solved it using standard physics textbook methods. I am very definitely not the person who is confused here.

    I've repeatedly failed to explain [slashdot.org] that the power to the cooled walls you keep talking about is completely irrelevant because it doesn't pass through that boundary.

    No, you haven't "failed to explain" this. What you did -- typically in your fashion, in my experience -- was change your story when you realized that it was not a viable avenue of attack.

    I repeat: I have all this already on record.

    GO AWAY. You are achieving NOTHING with this nonsense but making yourself look progressively more foolish.

  92. Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 1

    I've repeatedly failed to explain that the power to the cooled walls you keep talking about is completely irrelevant because it doesn't pass through that boundary.

    No, you haven't "failed to explain" this. What you did -- typically in your fashion, in my experience -- was change your story when you realized that it was not a viable avenue of attack. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-20]

    Don't be ridiculous, Jane. Anyone who clicks that link will see that I've consistently told you that only power which passes through a boundary is included in its energy conservation equation. Again, the source heating power passes through that boundary, but the exterior wall cooler power doesn't pass through that boundary.

    It's just like crayons in a coloring book, Jane.

    I repeat: I have all this already on record. [Jane Q. Public, 2015-03-20]

    Gosh, really? Before you give a copy of your cussing and screaming to your grandchildren, you might want to consider giving it to them before they've mastered coloring books. Otherwise "Grandma Jane" will have to answer a lot of awkward questions.

    And again, inserting the standard physics definition of the word "net" into your equation reproduces the energy conservation equation you're still adamantly rejecting. That's another independent way to see that you should consider the possibility that only power passing through a boundary should be included in the energy conservation equation across that boundary.

  93. Jane/Lonny Eachus goes Sky Dragon Slayer by khayman80 · · Score: 1

    Continued here and here and here.